28 Bucks Later... and I could have waited for the DVD (lite spoilers)

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2007)

After seeing "28 Days Later" on DVD and wishing I'd seen it in theaters, I wanted to make sure to catch the sequel "28 Weeks Later" on the big screen. Bad call. I should have heeded the golden rule about sequels. They generally suck. To be fair I am not going to claim that this film sucks, or that it is not worth seeing. But at matinée prices of 9 bucks a head for three of us, (+ gas and overpriced popcorn and cokes) we could have seen something that didn't just tick us off. And I don't know how anyone who loved the originality and cleverness of the first film, couldn't be ticked off. Gone is the loose indie feel and haunting quality of the first film. In it's place is a hi-pro-glow shoot-em-up with over-played MTV style low-attention-span action sequences that go on and on long past the point of generating any excitement, and leave us only confused as to what the hell is actually happening. Gone is the clever subtext from the first film contrasting the infected and the militarist mindset of the soldiers in the keep. Instead we have an attempt to only create a non-stop adrenaline rush, volume full-blast from the resurgence of the infection until the very end. How to take something unique and make it typical. IMHO, not an awful film, but I could have waited the DVD... in order to skip past the stupid bits.