On Film: 28 Weeks Later

In the first film of this franchise, 28 Days Later, a man awakens after being in a coma for 28 Days only to find London's citizens infected with some sort of disease that drives them insane causing them to kill and eat each other.  That movie follows this man as he meets others that aren't infected and he travels with them to an area they will be safe until they can be rescued or the disease runs its course.

In this sequel it's 28 Weeks Later and London has been evacuated of the uninfected and the infected have either all died of starvation or been exterminated by American forces who have come in to help clean up the mess.  New housing has been built and citizens are slowly being brought back into London as the cleanup continues. 

Two children a brother and his older sister are brought back to London to reunite with their father who never left,  The children were away on a school trip when the infection broke out and they were never able to come home.  Their father and mother hid from the infected with a small group of survivors until one day the infected broke into the house they were staying in.  Once the father and mother were separated in the house rather than try to save his wife the father ran for his own and it paid off for him because he survived.  He has lived with this guilt for some time and now since the family is reunited he also has to deal with the judging eyes of his children.



So, the children want some of their personal belongings including a picture of their mother.  In one of the first big plot holes in the film the children are able to fairly simply subvert the military security and get back into the section of London where their house is located.  Maybe the ease in which they escape is supposed to be some sort of political comment but if it is it's not apparent.  Once home they find their mother, who is infected but doesn't seem to be suffering from the symptoms of the infection.  After some examination military doctors conclude that she is a carrier of the infection but immune to the symptoms.



In the second really huge plot hole the husband is able to use his key card to get through all of the military security and into the room where his wife is being examined.  Now, it's made clear early on that he runs the building where all of the citizens live but that doesn't mean his clearance should extend all the way through the military's most secure areas.  This plot hole bothered me the most because it was so obviously a piece of lazy writing.  Anyway, he kisses his wife, passes the infection, and so it all begins again.

Obviously the writing is weak.  After the film ended I commented to one of my friends that I believed the script for the film must have only been about five pages long.  Outside of the writing though, there were some excellent tense moments, a few good jumps, some surprisingly brutal killings, and one of the most unique killings involving night vision since Silence of the Lambs.  So, at the end of the film, it wasn't well written but it was a fun horror experience.  It featured a sparse score that along with the quieter scenes of desolation reminded me of a John Carpenter film from the 80's.  I had fun, but I won't remember this film the way I do the first one, as a unique film that's a near classic.  28 Weeks Later is just a gory distraction to fill the void until something better comes along.