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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

28 Weeks Later (Spoilers no doubt)

  
  

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All Acting Regiment
16:43 / 17.05.07
Well, this was good. I'm usually not that into modern horror films because they put far too much effort into silly effects and have no human story, meaning you don't care about the people or what happens to them. This was different, though - the two kid leads (Imogen Poots especially) giving a brilliant performance despite their young age, as well as the two soldiers. Like the first one, managed to critique the millitary experience/effect without failing to treat the soldiers as human beings.

And it was realy horrible as well!
 
 
Triplets
21:19 / 17.05.07
It was Aliens to 28 Days' Alien, wasn't it? Superhet U.S. marines providing mucho-macho firepower and protection which just leads to things going FUBAR all the quicker, but some of them have a heart of gold, at least!

Some really terrifying scares and set-pieces in there. The super-tough, super-fast infected are still scary as fuck. What was up with Zombie Begbie, though? He was stalking his kids personally through at least half the film. Was he a 'smart' infected?

Felt a bit empty, though. When the kids made it to the end of the last level and met Michael I was suprised the movie was finished.

Zombie chopperholocaust was bloody top-notch!
 
 
sleazenation
22:58 / 17.05.07
I made the alien/aliens analogy to a mate who pointed out that the whole military/people killing people thing had actually been done in 28 days. True enough but the focus wasn't on the military there and this does up the octane somewhat.

I enjoyed it a lot. And, if you know London geography, there is a paraerllel narrative where you are piecing together their journey....
 
 
unbecoming
04:24 / 18.05.07
i thought this was an excellent film. The beginning scene had me totally gripped and i loved the running shots. The best aspects of the film for me were the directing and editing- the way the violence was always just slightly obscured by something. The way the film was put together really evoked that feeling of panic in me.

However, overall i thought the actual plot was annoyingly pedestrian and predictable not to mention wholly unneeded, to be frank. I too could not understand the zombie begbie's motivations. I also felt that great efforts were made to try to develop the characters in a short space of time but it didn't really work. I would rather the plot had been less developed- more street level than just another action thriller screenplay.

But through that, the edgy, seat gripping tension really made the film. The direction really made it seem believable, another reason i got pissed off when suddenly a helicopter was ruthlessly cutting up a hundred zombies in an unconvincing CGI splatterfest.

Good ending though. personally, I would like to see this story continued as a (well made) comic series because i think that could allow for more epic plot development and maybe straddle alot of different perspectives on it.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
05:21 / 18.05.07
I had a big, fundamental problem with the fact that I didn't feel encouraged to care one bit about any of the characters, and for the most part found them annoying ~ which really undermined the suspenseful involvement. I saw them throughout as stage-school poppets rather than believable and likeable people. And then there were the multiple occasions where they just behaved so stupidly, I couldn't have retained sympathy anyway: "TAMMY!" "TAMMY!" [silence] "TAMMY WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING!" [cut to Tammy, in next room, with no reason not to answer] ~ there's a repeat of that in the underground, with Tammy wailing hysteriacally and Andy nearby but not replying, but the sight of them sneaking out and jaunting around on a scooter across infected London was the kicker: I couldn't really feel they deserved to live. I didn't feel they were at all plausible as siblings, either ~ not one spat or "I hate you" within the whole film, just hand-holding and scarey-starey "we'll be together FOREVER" moments.

Beyond that big issue, the carelessness with London geography put me off ~ there were a few times someone just couldn't have got from A to B like that, and certainly couldn't have walked it ~ and the action scenes were cut to bits, so the zombie threat was reduced to glimpses of extras and blood-splatter, which became pretty ho-hum after the first scene. In fact, the first scene, the prologue, was the strongest section for me.

My favourite bit was when the snipers took out the zombies and then started mowing everyone down, because it looked like a good video game. I was actually laughing through that part. So I don't think I was able to appreciate the film in the way the producers intended.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
05:23 / 18.05.07
Oh apart from that, I enjoyed all the shots of unfamiliar, deserted or action-film London. So there were a lot of shots I enjoyed, even though I didn't dig the plot or characters.
 
 
sleazenation
05:47 / 18.05.07
the carelessness with London geography put me off ~ there were a few times someone just couldn't have got from A to B like that, and certainly couldn't have walked it

What are you talking about? Not being able to get from A to B? Sure, it's a long walk, but entirely doable. Yeah, I have trouble seeing anyone travelling through the myriad tunnels of the tube and not getting a bit lost, but I don't see where it was impossible...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
06:24 / 18.05.07
Well, it's not impossible, but implausible and showed a lack of thought about the distances involved, in my opinion. As I remember it, Tammy, Andy and Scarlett walked from Canary Wharf to the Millennium Bridge without any of the journey being shown, so it seemed quick and easy, and they didn't seem to be tired or need a rest afterwards. The underground station scenes are at Charing Cross, and Tammy and Andy then walk to Wembley Stadium ~ the underground station seeming to lead straight up to the tunnel leading to the pitch, though perhaps this was some transitional sequence I misread and not meant to be taken literally.

These are really big distances and I didn't think the film captured those distances in terms of implying the time travelled or its effect on two children.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
06:25 / 18.05.07
OK, sorry on reflection I shouldn't have said it's "impossible". It's possible to get from any A in London to any B.
 
 
Benny the Ball
06:29 / 18.05.07
I once walked from London Bridge to Wandsworth with no trouble, But I was drunk at the time. Maybe they were drunk?

I'm not sure if I'll get round to seeing this - I wasn't too into the first film, and the second one was a pain to shoot - I think there was something like 48 days shooting, and then 20 days of reshoots/pick-ups.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
06:30 / 18.05.07
Google Earth says it's 6 miles from Canary Wharf to Charing Cross, and about 10 miles from there to Wembley. So... yeah, OK, you could certainly do it. But on the other hand, as I said, I don't think the film conveyed that distance at all.
 
 
wicker woman
07:27 / 18.05.07
Question from one who has not seen it yet but is totally a huge fan of the original: I've heard that, despite this movie having a demonstrably bigger budget, they still try to play with the camera as though the budget consisted of the end result of a paperclip and a few weeks spent on Craig'sList. And not in a good way.
 
 
Triplets
07:48 / 18.05.07
wonderstarr, I believe you've made your point about the representation of distance within 28 Weeks Later.
 
 
Triplets
07:53 / 18.05.07
Nico, the digital camera used to film the thing is wielded during all the actions scenes by hamsters onna bouncy castle, but they're skilled hamsters. As Hester says the quick cuts and jitteryness tend to conceal a lot of the nastiness, leaving it to the imagination. Most of the violence is framed creatively. The sniper scope at the end of the film is horrid.
 
 
Evil Scientist
08:01 / 18.05.07
they still try to play with the camera as though the budget consisted of the end result of a paperclip and a few weeks spent on Craig'sList. And not in a good way.

Well kind of. I think the intention in the first film was that shots of the Infected were frenetic and unfocused to try and give a visual impression of their anger. I thought it worked well there, but did risk giving the impression that the camera operators had been out on the beers the night before.

In general they stick with that in the second, although not all of the time. Here though I think it's more because "that's how they portrayed the Infected in the first one". So Infected-cam was perhap reinforcing continuity between the two films.

In general I enjoyed 28WL. Good impulse-zone zombie fun. A few glaring plot holes (ie that a carrier of the virus wouldn't be under guard 24/7 and that janitors can get into Cat.4 labs, even if they do fix everything in the green zone, absolutely no naval presence to maintain the quarantine of the UK).

I was a bit disapointed there was no feral dog action going on (after they made such a big deal of them being a danger of the areas outside the secure regions).

Although it embraced the Aliens-cliche with vigour I did like the opening sequences of the rooftop patrols on their lonely vigils. Soldiers as guardians contrasting with the soldiers as "monsters worse than the Infected" of the first.

Of course that goes out of the window when they start gunning down everyone, but still.

The film didn't go into detail about the number of survivors (as in, lived through the plague in the UK) to the number of ex-patriots. But I would have liked to have seen scores of hardened Brits opting not to get herded into the least-safe-safe-room-in-the-world and instead escaping into the surronding city before the military lost control and the Infected broke out too.
 
 
Benny the Ball
08:03 / 18.05.07
Re the camera - it was shot on film - the lighting cameraman/DOP and the operator had a few rows, and the DOP would often grab a camera and do his own thing - changing the scale and scope of a shot and doing a lot of hand held stuff that was just weirdly framed to be honest. There were some great moments, but hand held drives me mad when watching it...
 
 
DaveBCooper
10:04 / 18.05.07
Saw this last night, and 'meh' pretty much sums up my reaction.

As people have observed, the pre-titles sequence was very strong, and I liked the sights of London post-virus, but there were so many other bits that just made little or no sense.
Such as:
-The aforementioned tendency of everyone to lose the power of speech when separated, for no good reason
-The amazing and utterly unexplained ability of Zombie-Carlyle to track down two individual people in the face of firebombing, gas, military-patrolled-streets, and the fact his brain has supposedly been replaced by a relentless appetite for blood. Despite all this, he still tracks them across London? Yeah, right.
-The startling ability of their Mum to escape the zombies and make it home. Too much of a coincidence for my tastes.
-The uncertainty about who I was meant to root for. It's Carlyle at the start (and he's even got flaws, nice), then no it's the kids, no the Mum's alive, no the kids again, no, the medical officer, no, the sniper, no the kids… who's my protagonist here?
-And then, at the end of it all, it was pointless? They get to France and the zombies are either already there, or Andy wasn't immune after all? Great, that feels like the way Alien3 makes the whole of Aliens, with Ripley's struggle to keep Newt alive, a waste of time: "Oh. Dead after all that, then. Great"
-And that camerawork just got messy and less effective as it went on, though the night-vision bit was a nice idea.

Thought the first film was okay, but this was disappointing. Four writers, was it ? Too many cooks, I fear.
 
 
Lea-side
10:11 / 18.05.07
I live on the Isle Of Dogs (in fact virtually next door to Canary Wharf), so will be doubly strange to see this. Will comment more whan i actually see it...
 
 
Evil Scientist
10:26 / 18.05.07
it was pointless? They get to France and the zombies are either already there, or Andy wasn't immune after all? Great, that feels like the way Alien3 makes the whole of Aliens, with Ripley's struggle to keep Newt alive, a waste of time: "Oh. Dead after all that, then. Great"

His Mum wasn't immune either, she just wasn't affected by the virus. So both of them were still carriers for the plague. I think the endshots of Paris were meant to suggest that they'd got to France and he'd inadvertantly spread the disease onwards. The shot of his eye after he was attacked by his Dad suggests the virus caught hold in him (and also, perhaps, that his sister was aware of that).

I think, in the world of survival horror, the bleak endings can sometimes work better than a happy ending. It vastly improved the (relatively) recent remake of Dawn of the Dead in my eyes.

Ironically, anyone who stayed in the UK would probably be better off. The majority of the Infected would have been killed by fire or gas. So as long as you could outlast the few remaining there at least be a good prospect of long-term survival.
 
 
sleazenation
10:46 / 18.05.07
Just a last bit on the journey - They show snatches of bits of their journey- how much you get will depend on how well you know London, between Greenwich and millennium bridge we see them walking through a couple of street including under the rail bridges at Stoney Street (SE1).

I will return later to talk about characterisation a bit.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
14:32 / 18.05.07
This is their route ~ from Canary Wharf under the river to Greenwich, and then to the South Bank. Actually, it looks a lot easier and quicker to stay on the North side of the Thames.



I'd say the city is one of the main characters in both 28 movies, so it doesn't seem irrelevant to talk about it.
 
 
sleazenation
14:45 / 18.05.07
It might have been easier to stay on the north side had it not been for the incendury bombing north of the river prompting them to seek refuge in the Greenwich foot tunnel, and then on from there they end up south of the river...
 
 
All Acting Regiment
14:49 / 18.05.07
Yeah, they really used the city well. Tunnels, suburbs, turned into nasty places...

Yes, thought the kids were a bit stage-schooley, but also thought it worked because they were nice middle-class kid characters. She was called "Tammy", for Pete's sake! And they had a nice Victorian detatched house in the suburbs. And they're not safe, are they, despite all that?

The sniper scope at the end of the film is horrid.

*Shudder*

As for the ending - we don't know if they all died, we just saw the deserted helicopter and some infected running around Paris. I'd rather not have it explained. They could have crashed and spread the plague, or it could have already been there. What about birds and that? Didn't the virus come from a monkey originally? Birds could have spread it. The millitary, though they said it didn't jump species, were clearly capable of lying.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
09:08 / 19.05.07
on this whole distance thing... are you really supposed to be taking the locations as goegraphical fact rather than the setting of a fiction?

in david lynch's Mulholland Drive, they walk out the the Seven Veils, which is on Sunset in West Holylwood, go around the corner, and wind up in a neighborhood in DOWNTOWN LA, which is unwalkably distant, with ZERO connecting public transportation of any kind, and without a cut signifying a change of time, to wander into the Silencio

is this supposed to make me think its not a good movie? is that film any less about Los Angeles as a character than freakin 28 weeks is a film "about" london?

and good grief don't even get me started about the "geography" of new york in Eyes Wide Shut.
 
 
sleazenation
12:06 / 19.05.07
Well, it's kind of both - a geographical setting for a fiction. One that is set in London with London's geography.

If you don't want to go with that then there is a whole other diseased infected chase sequence going on. But the streets and buildings of London are part of that fiction. The tunnel they escape the firebombing from isn't a.n.other tunnel. It's the Greenwich foot tunnel. It goes from the Isle of dogs to Greenwich. Leaving our protagonists in South London and necessitating that the should cross the river again at some point to get north, which they do.


Greenwich foot tunnel


Greenwich foot tunnel in 28 Weeks Later.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think this film is flawless, and, you know, it's certain they didn't shoot the the park sceen in Regent's park, but the film certainly gets a lot of bang out of it's London pound and offers extra fun for those familiar with London geography.
 
 
sleazenation
12:18 / 19.05.07
Oh and it's probably worth mentioning that there are all sorts of problems with how much London's geography and skyline has changed in just the last 5 years.

But still, as is by now no doubt painfully apparent, it worked for me.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
14:41 / 19.05.07
Well, yeah, look at Blade Runner's cockeyed "Los Angeles 2019", which doesn't make it a bad movie. It's just an interesting line of discussion, how the fictional city maps onto the real (cf. "Kirby Plaza, NYC", currently in Heroes), especially if the film purports to use the city's real-life geography.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:52 / 19.05.07
(Boboss here)

I think the point about geography is that in some films it's okay to take liberties and in others it's more problematic. Dunno about this one as I haven't seen it.

Fercryeye
 
 
The Natural Way
16:28 / 19.05.07
In response to Mystery Gypt
 
 
Benny the Ball
08:46 / 20.05.07
it's certain they didn't shoot the the park sceen in Regent's park

The bit where the kids run and drop to the ground allowing the army guy to shoot the infected behind them was done at regents park, but a lot was done waaaay outside london.
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:20 / 21.05.07
As for the ending - we don't know if they all died, we just saw the deserted helicopter and some infected running around Paris. I'd rather not have it explained. They could have crashed and spread the plague, or it could have already been there. What about birds and that? Didn't the virus come from a monkey originally? Birds could have spread it. The millitary, though they said it didn't jump species, were clearly capable of lying.

Well absolutely. I much prefer endings that leave space for the viewers to exercise a little imagination. That the kids were responsible for spreading the plague to mainland europe is just one theory. (Arguably some Infected could have gotten into the Chunnel and wandered over...if there was no security precautions on the French side).

As to the possibility of the virus jumping species. Primate to primate was mentioned as the only known vector. So the initial infection was from a chimp to a human and then human to human. It's not impossible that it could be carried by birds, but it's pretty unlikely.

The wiki mentions that Rage is a heavily modified form of ebola, so actually (if I fanwank a little) it's possible that a bat could transport it (although aren't they non-migratory?).
 
 
All Acting Regiment
14:05 / 21.05.07
If they had rage they might go on a rampage, though, which could send them over the channel where they'd be picked up by the wind and set down on the French coast.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
15:18 / 21.05.07
What if two sparrows carried an infected monkey between them?
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
12:43 / 28.05.07
But... surely the whole point of the ending is that Andy was infected by his father's final attack, but carried his mother's ability to act as an immune carrier for the virus, and so was able to spread it to mainland Europe when his sister and MichaelFromLost foolishly - but understandably - carried him to safety from the occupying US forces in the UK?

I mean, they go to great lengths to point out that the immunity-carrier thing is likely to be a genetic trait, and that so is the odd coloured eye thing that Andy and his mother also share. They point out that Andy's mother is infected (hence, by the way, being able to escape the infected and get back home - they don't attack their own, as is obvious in both movies, so the fact that she was attacked and bitten would ironically have made it a piece of piss to survive) but a carrier, hence how she infects her husband with a kiss, the virus being carried in her saliva.

They also go to great lengths to establish that mainland UK - being an island - is a quarantine zone, so the whole narrative throughput for the movie is one of containment. While it's possible that the Rage virus spread to Europe by other means, it's not the story the film is telling.

I enjoyed the obvious parallel with another current incompetent US occupation of a foreign country, with snipers finding it difficult to distinguish between protected citizens and insurgents/infected, and so in moments of crisis simply choosing not to bother trying. The fact that the mass infection was, if not caused, then definitely initiated by the US military's stupid decision to lock all the non-infected citizens up like cattle in a confined space where one single infected could start a exponential chain reaction of infection was another Chilling/Damning Indictment Of US Military Cackhandedness In The Face Of Crisis.

The choppocalypse was just gravy. GRAVY.

Did anyone else keep thinking that the chopper pilot was just going to start shouting WAAAAAAAAALT for no apparent reason?

Loved the increased nastiness in this one, mostly through by Rob Zombie's* completely demented performance as Lead Infected. He scared the living funk out of me. It's true. I have no more funk. I'm funkless. Defunked, a ha ha.

* Industrial pop metal star and shlock horror director Rob Zombie was in no way involved in the making of this motion picture.
 
 
sleazenation
12:54 / 28.05.07
I was impressed by how long Rob Carlyle spent as an infected in the narrative - of course that was also a problem since it was never really quite adequately explained how he survived the firebombing (entirely plausible, and probably narratively difficult to show) and how he managed to track down his children (which was somewhat less plausible, but suitably nasty enough that I was carried through...)
 
  

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