"Lets see how many London landmarks we can cram into one film"

Rating: 3/10 (25 June 2007)

On the whole, I've never been that fussed on the horror or zombie genre - but 28 Days Later was a very well made, and a credit to British cinema. As Jim wakes up in hospital and wanders out into a very still London - the silence is just deafening. More than anything, I was just in awe of how they managed to film it! The film proceeds through a dystopia where no place is safe, only safer, giving you a tense build up and a very satisfying sudden release of gore.
Fast forward to 28 weeks later. Within minutes, you're dropped into a horrifying reawakening of just how much damage the infected can do. It's heartbreaking to watch a man witness a brutal attack on his wife knowing that there's nothing he can do to save her, without dying himself, and so he flees. Very good, and very human. Well done.
And then it all goes downhill. There are so many plot holes that you could use the film as a vegetable strainer. Why were the kids accepted back into the country, if the quarantine services weren't expecting them? They could surely have been put on the first flight back. How is it that the army personnel didn't spot them creeping across the bridge? Surely there should also have been some sort of morning and evening register or 'head count' to make sure the numbers still tallied up (to make sure no one had got out and that no one had got in - what if there'd still been one lone infected who'd managed to sneak in undetected? Well yes, we know exactly what would happen, but that's beside the point!). Why wasn't the mother under stricter guard? Why was Robert Carlisle's character given such wide unsupervised access? For true security there should be 2 of you with separate swipe cards/passwords which have to be used together to gain access to certain areas.
But I digress - the film relies on lax security, lack of communication and shoddy protocol - there'd be no way that the infected could get in if all 3 were kept tight, and then there'd be no sequel.
Now for anyone who lives in or near London, as the film progresses, you really do begin to wonder if the writers had ever visited or even looked at a map. Could someone please explain to me how you can see Wembley stadium in the near distance from central London?! Or how you're supposed to get from East London to Regent's Park on foot within four minutes?! Or how you're supposed to navigate approximately 5 miles of rabbit warren-like Tube tunnels from Lancaster Gate to one of Wembley's tube stations in complete darkness and without a tube map or a torch?! Or did I fall asleep when this was all explained? I really began to wonder if there was actually any specific relevance to the locations, or if it was just the writers pulling London landmarks out of a hat and loosely fitting a story around them, and hoping that several million people wouldn't notice their tenuous grasp of the local geography.