Review by John Weber
What
am I missing here?
The British apocalyptic/zombie
thriller 28 DAYS LATER is getting rave reviews
from the likes of Roger Ebert, Rolling
Stone and The New York Times,
to name but a few. Yes, I know the director
is Danny Boyle, the acclaimed director of
TRAINSPOTTING (and, yes, he deserves that
acclaim). And Alex Garland, author of 'The
Beach', wrote the screenplay.
So shouldn't we expect something
that is original, not wholly derivative
of THE OMEGA MAN, THE QUIET EARTH, DAWN
OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD (among others)?
Or are Boyle and Garland just slumming in
a new genre for them?
The film opens with some well-meaning
animal activists breaking in and releasing
chimps from their cages in a research facility.
Unfortunately for them (and just about everyone
else on the British Isles), these monkeys
have been treated with an experimental drug
called "rage" – which makes
these monkeys into horrible, red-eyed bloodlusting
creatures. And this lil' disease transfers
from chimp to person to person in about
twenty seconds.
Cut to 28 days later... Jim
(Cillian Murphy) wakes up in his hospital
bed, where he's been in a coma. There's
no one around. He wanders through the hospital,
through Piccadilly Circus, by Big Ben –
and can't find a single person. He eventually
wanders into a church, where he finds a
pack of people infected with rage, and runs
into a couple of survivors (Naomi Harris
and Noah Huntley) who bail him out of trouble
and give him the whole lowdown. These scenes
are well-done, but we've seen them before...
many times before. The rage virus has decimated
England – and has probably spread throughout
the world. Not many normal folks are left.
Eventually, they meet up with
a father and young daughter (Brendan Gleeson
and Megan Burns), and hear a recording on
the radio about an Army camp near Manchester
that promises safety from the roaming rage-infected
creatures all over London. They head there,
have all sorts of nice human moments on
the road, and yes, the surviving (nine)
soldiers are there and take in our London
refugees. But the slightly loony major in
charge (Christopher Eccleston, in a performance
that reminded me of a very low-key Marjoe
Gortner) has some plans for the female members
of our group.
Look, there's nothing technically
wrong with 28 DAYS LATER. The performances
are fine, the digital-video-to-film transfer
makes the film look gritty and almost-documentary
like.
But the characters are all
stereotypes. And there are some story problems.
For instance, the highly implausible scene
when Gleason's cab somehow magically can
drive over piled-up cars in a commuter tunnel
(?). And why do these rage-infected people
not turn on each other and get their aggression
out? Of course, if that happens, then we
don't have a movie. But my main gripe is
the lack of originality present in 28 DAYS
LATER.
There's a fine line between
homage and ripoff. You can decide for yourself
which way 28 DAYS LATER teeters... I think
you know where I'm leaning.
