A nice companion piece that holds the key to good sequels.

Rating: 7/10 (14 May 2007)

28 weeks later, England is declared free of infection and rebuilding has begun. People are being shipped in from overseas under the protection of the United States Army to repopulate the island, and among them is young Andy and his sister Tammy, who were away on an overseas class trip while their parents were stuck in a cottage fighting off zombies. Once the kids get on the island, though, infection re-emerges (in a contrived but reasonable way) and the action is on.
28 Days Later could be said to be about a man who built himself a family and, when his family was attacked, defended it. 28 Weeks Later is sort of a mirror-reversal diptych of that concept, instead showing two children survive a dysfunctional and fragile family, but ultimately spreading their discontent into the future. 28 Weeks Later can't match up to Days' cinematography and mood, but the music far surpasses the original, and it holds true to the way the first film showed what people like that would do in a situation like that. In fact, 28 Weeks Later was very daring in being direct in how the characters in it deal with their respective situations, especially when it involves the military, considering how popular anti-militantism is right now.
However, the movie serves up a big enough serving of contrivances to make it, unfortunately, that lesser sequel that we expect. No, 28 Weeks Later is nowhere near as good as the original. But it's still a decent film, and even though it has an annoying tendency to provide easy exits for characters in awkward contexts, it also has such moments as the helicopter-blade-meets-zombie-horde scene, the beauty of which will bring tears of happiness to the eyes and eternal love to the hearts of every zombie-movie fan in the world.
So sit back and enjoy this next serving, and hope along with me that the bad cliffhanger ending will at least lead to some more movies that hold to the values of cinematography, post-rock music, and familial survivalism nature of the previous films.
--PolarisDiB