Not as good as the original, but not as bad as some of these posts would have you believe.

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2007)

I love movies like this--downbeat, end-of-the-world, apocalyptic, hopeless films. And _28 Weeks Later_ is pessimistic in spades. It is also one of the bloodiest films I've seen in some time. Sure, it's hard to follow up a blazingly original movie with an effective sequel (_Aliens_ is one of the few successes), but this movie is a lot better than the haters would have you believe. I've read reviews that take the film to task for its alleged plot holes. For example, the ease with which the two kids escape the quarantine zone and head for home. Does no one recall the American sniper who sees them leave, reports it in, and the helicopter and bio-suited soldiers waiting for them when they step out of their house? Or the lax security measures surrounding the mother, a carrier of the disease but not affected by it? The American head of medical quarantine has only just confirmed that the woman is indeed infected, causing the general in charge to set off for the woman's room with the intention of killing her. All of this is happening at the same time that Robert Carlyle, the guilty father/husband is sneaking in to see his wife. Granted, he probably shouldn't have an all-access pass that allows him in, but the point is, they haven't at this point confirmed that she's infected yet. So the lack of security measures is not necessarily a fault. Once the infection takes hold and begins to spread, the movie becomes a roller-coaster ride that never lets up. My only gripe was when the helicopter starts shooting at the car as it drives down London streets--if a car is moving, that means someone is alive in there and that someone is normal and uninfected. So why shoot? The "shoot everything" directive makes sense at first in the big crowd, where the soldiers can't tell who is and is not infected. But after that, it doesn't make a lot of sense (which also leads to the completely unnecessary death by fire of Jeremey Renner's character). As with the first movie, I loved the scenes of a silent, empty London. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to shoot those? London is one of the world's busiest and most populous metropolises, so it's amazing to have those shots of silent, empty streets. I liked the ending, too. Hopefully, there will be a third movie in this series that will extend the story. Now that the infection has escaped the relative isolation of the UK, the potential for true terror has just been realized.