Weak sequel to art house horror hit "28 Days Later"

Rating: 4/10 (11 October 2007)

Picking up the title number of weeks after the original "28 Days Later" left off (after an opening flashback set within the time frame events of the first film), the infected appear to be finished and the army is now moving people back into London, or at least the cleanest area while salvage is still underway. But in the tradition of stupid people doing stupid things, two kids sneak out into not safe zone to get whatever material possessions they want from their old house, where they find their mother, whom they believed was dead. Their mother, with her two different colored eyes (she played Mel Gibson's doomed wife in "Braveheart") is infected by the rage virus that ravaged the first film, yet she appears to be immune to it, though she is still a carrier. Naturally, an army doctor (Rose Byrne) wants to examine her and see if they can find a way to cure her and then turn that cure around the world, but her superior does not agree. Before either can do anything, the kids' dad/husband of the woman (shark faced Robert Carlyle) visits his wife/mother of his kids to beg her forgiveness; he kisses her passionately, her saliva transfers the virus to him, he goes mad, kills her, then he starts the whole epidemic all over again. To make a long story short, lots of people die (including the army doctor and a heroic US Delta Commando), London gets firebombed, the two kids seem to get away, the infected dad is killed by his own daughter, and while the two kids are air-lifted out by a US chopper pilot, the film ends with his chopper empty in Paris, where the infected run wild.
Like so many sequels, "28 Weeks Later" tries to up the ante and shoot for a larger scale. In short order, WEEKS tries to be an epic film for its genre, whereas the original "28 Days Later" was a smaller, more compact road movie. "Weeks" has high ambitions but it never lives up to them, the film is too long and does not really go anywhere. A true blue disappointment.
I imagine the inevitable sequels will be "28 Months Later" (which would be about 2 and 1/2 years) and "28 Years Later".