28 Weeks Later (2007)
At first, I found myself playing devil’s advocate: Fu Schnickens serves a much needed purpose at the Meadhall. He frightens us into action, devours the inactive, and sometimes he totally ralphs all over Furor.
Today, I wish Fu Schnickens an eternity of bowel cramps, for he has forced me to watch 28 Weeks Later.
While certainly not a horrible movie, 28 Weeks Later lacks much of a message or a point, and because it’s not a character-driven film, it needs one. There’s very little to take home from this film. Some of the directing is superb, and some is the worst I’ve seen in a long while. Let me break it down for you while Fu slobbers all over my right shoulder. His insane mouth-droppings profound insights are in red.
Premise: Usurper 3/5, Fu 5/5
Somehow I found this scene of zombies just pouring over hills to be more frightening than any of the gory slobberfest that was to come.
A horrible disease that pretty-much instantaneously turns your average human into a flesh-feasting, frenzied, superstrong zombie has blanketed Great Britain. After a few months, the zombies run out of people to eat and starve to death. NATO (read: Americans) move in when the coast is clear and start rebuilding England. Apparently, a number of British citizens are ill-informed enough about the outbreak to want to return to their rotting, stinking corpse of a country rather than seek asylum in Europe or America. Those fucktards pay the inevitable price.
I admired the original premise of a fledgling city reconstruction following a nationwide zombie attack. Britain should have been a write-off after the first one! The hubris of you humans! This “Green Zone” setting makes for memorable plot and visuals, and resonates especially in this day and age. Or is this movie about the rising Reagan-era AIDS consciousness? I do not understand your human maladies! But basically, everything that can go wrong goes just that. It’s hilarious!
We’re introduced to a happy couple hiding with other survivors in a country cottage. When zombies attack, the idiot woman sits around waiting to be devoured while trying to save a freaked-out child. Apparently she hadn’t seen enough frenzied zombies to know what a bad idea that was. Still, we’re supposed to hate the husband for being smart enough to not stick around and die with her. He, apparently, was supposed to ninja-storm thirty zombies without getting any of the their copious blood-drool in any of his facial oriffices. What a coward for not doing so.
Fu Schnickens greatly praises the ability of the cowardly father to run his ASS off when women and children are in danger. Your human movies need more realistic heroes like him, and indeed, this film is the proud chronicle of his selfless sacrifice in service of the RAGE virus. I did not know humans were capable of such real emotion.
Doyle, who deserved better.
The mother survives despite being bitten, using the power of stupefying indignation to escape the fuckload of zombies that were standing in the room with her, and becomes a carrier for the disease. She’s a walking guilt-trip until they strap her down, where she becomes a strapped-down guilt trip.
The “carrier” concept was also treated in a novel fashion, and immediately invested the movie with a weighty purpose. The writers were clever to integrate it with the telltale mark of the virus–the wild red eyes. Mine are better–theirs just look like cheap Kodak mishaps next to these Terminator circa 1984 peepers.
Cast: Usurper 4/5, Fu 4/5
I can’t complain about the cast at all, who played their parts quite well. Sadly, there was little meat to their parts. Maybe that’s why the zombies just had to keep eating more and more of them. You like that, Fu? Can I go now?
Everyone onscreen is great and their roles are quite realistic. I also enjoyed the foolhardy children who return to their old home outside the Green Zone. The father and the sniper are standout actors, while I swear I’ve seen the cute little Medic before…she just has that “survival horror” face. Compared to the first movie, we don’t get as much of what I understand to be “human” moments, although these are entirely dispensable in light of the big BOOM!
FX/Technical: Usurper 3.5/5, Fu 4/5
Since the zombies all moved too fast for me to take a decent snapshot, here's a look at my favorite Quake 3 Level, Q3DM17
While it’s not breaking any fantastic new ground, the effects were pulled off quite well. The directing was largely good, but suffered from some herky-jerky fast edits that were meant to convey speed, but instead conveyed directorial laziness. The quick cuts reminded me of how Alien Versus Predator and Chronicles of Riddick both attempted to get their movies a PG-13 rating by making it impossible to tell what’s going on. Since the movie was rated R, my cynical instincts suggest they are hiding a lack of extras or poor makeup work. Or maybe the director really thought that was cool; obviously I did not. However, the use of lighting and, presumably, lens filters or post-processing to achieve the gloomy landscape was well executed.
Fu had his fill of fan service with the destruction of your modern city and the decimation of its populace, and had to adjust himself several times throughout the showing. The rivers of fire snaking through the streets were just as gratifying as the constant gore, especially the helicopter rotors as they cleaved through scores of Infected. Not only did bloody puke and eye-gouging abound in the incredibly gory intro, but this movie was perhaps the first to answer the question of what happens when zombies come up against chemical weapons. There is also a very well-executed scene shot entirely through a rifle’s night scope! Everything is starkly beautiful as it is effective.
Yeah, the firebombing was beautiful.
The music was laidback and stylish although it still manages a rising tension in key scenes–a really impressive score. The action is herky-jerky, but this is entirely fitting for zombie attacks (it just annoys me personally).
Fu(n) Factor: Usurper 3/5, Fu 5/5
If you tire of life, you can turn your back on me, but don’t turn your back on this movie. I love London now! This sequel manages all the gritty awesomeness of the classic zombie subgenre without its oppressively grim themes. It’s nothing but a thrillride front to back. And I smell a trilogy! Die, froggies! Hahahaha!
I guess I just find it hard to care. The first interesting character that showed up was Doyle, a sensitive soldier who didn’t play enough video games as a child. The extermination and Doyle’s rejection of it, as well as the “cowardice” of the father, play into the same lame “humanity just sucks” message that made Children of Men so indigestable to me. But hey, if you like your pointless zombie movie to be bleak and depressing, by all means, rent 28 Weeks Later.