Type: B Negative.

Rating: 3/10 (3 October 2014)

I don't think this is worth more than a few words. A plague has killed or exiled the residents of London and the US Army, the world's epidemiologist, is now patrolling the city as exiled are re-introduced in small batches.
Among them is a hapless father who has lost his wife and his two lonely children, just returned from exile in Spain. A kind of Army hostess greets them at the equivalent of Ellis Island on the Isle of Dogs. The island is completely safe, she tells them in a soothing voice. Just be sure you don't leave it or you might encounter a contaminated object or a survivor. In this kind of movie, when a warning like that is issued, you become prescient.
The two kids promptly leave the Isle of Dogs looking for what was once their home and, with luck, a photo of their mother. They do better than that. They find mother herself, an asymptomatic contagious survivor. The Army finds the three of them and takes them back to the isolated Isle, where the next stupid act comes from the woman's husband. He can't stand to be without her. The sanctuary apparently has no control officers or guards because the husband waltzes blithely through the many doors, kisses his wife, who is under restraint, then becomes infected at once, goes berserk, bangs his head against the walls, screams, has an epileptiform seizure, spurts blood from every orifice, and attacks his helpless wife, gouging our her eyeballs with his fingers, battering her face into pulp.
It's a shame that it so quickly deteriorated into a more than usually violent bath tub full of gore and violence because the premise has promise. The disease being dealt with has symptoms similar to those of ebola, except for the superhuman strength and madness that movies must tack on for greater impact.
The locations are surprisingly good. London has changed a lot since I was last there. But the photography is fashionably dark. I have no idea how this fad got started, perhaps with "The X Files," but every scene is underlighted. Even a hospital is dark during hours. It doesn't enhance the sense of mystery or threat. It only irritates you and makes you wonder what the hell is going on. And the fashionably wobbling camera is enough to make you spurt blood from every orifice.
The early scenes with the soldiers jerking around with one another are kind of fun, although even here cheap shots at shock are taken. (Eg., a pilot is dozing off and there is a loud noise and he is attacked from someone off screen -- but it's just a buddy playing grabass. It happens twice, as if once weren't too much.)
Aside from those opening scenes, what the film has going for it is Imogen Poots as the daughter. She has a nose on her that seems sculpted out of one of those plastic French curves used by school children. She's stunning. Her beauty is strictly conventional but undeniable. But -- Imogen Poots? And her close friend is supposed to be Mathew Beard? Where do the Brits get these names from? I mean, Micawber or Bumble, okay. But Poots and Beard? It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. Poots and Beard present: "YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT!", A Zany Laff Riot That Will Jar Loose Your Dental Plate!!!