Review:28 Days Later (2002)/Brian Kurtz



In this heartfelt touching sequel, Sandra Bullock has once again fallen off the wagon and her family must now deal with the turmoil of having an alcoholic in the fam…no wait! Shit. Wrong movie. My bad. Let's try this again. Charlton Heston is the last man on Earth and he holds the key to stopping an army of vicious albinos from…CRAP! That's not the right one either is it? I'll get it right one of these days.

Oh yeah! Now I remember. This is the story about a guy named Jim who wakes up to find that all of England has succumbed to a nasty viral infection known as the RAGE! But can Jim maintain his humanity as throngs of bloodthirsty RAGE victims seek to tear him apart?

Once again, mankind takes it in the bum. We start off with seeing some nondescript genetic experimentation lab somewhere in England. These wacky mad doctors have some poor defenseless little chimp strapped to a machine and are forcing him to watch several TV monitors displaying images of graphic violence - Not the least of which is a 12 hour straight run of Spice Girls videos. The reasons behind this experiment are not made clear, but it is obvious that the scientists have been watching a little too much Clockwork Orange.

Shortly thereafter, some hippie fucks from PETA break into the lab and try to extradite the disenfranchised little simians. The head quack warns them not to open the cages. He tells them that the animals are all infected with a virus known as the RAGE! (Sounds like a WWE wrestler don't it?) But do these tree-hugging fucks listen to him? Do they stop and think that maybe these furry little darlings may contain a septic bite that could prove to be the downfall of all mankind? Nope. They open up the monkey cages and the poo flinging chimps open up some serious whoop ass on these clowns. Shortly thereafter, society crumbles and the apes take over the world. Doctor Zaius arrives and sculpts a new simian utopia in which everyone can live peacefully together in total rapture and harmony.

Uhhh…okay. I made that last little bit up. The apes don't really take over. But they DO get out of their cages and spread the RAGE disease all about the place. The disease is transmitted through the blood and those infected usually puke up gobs of the stuff all over the place. Only a drop of blood is required to spread the disease and it takes about 10-20 seconds for a person to transform into a salivating, malformed hygienically challenged monster. Just picture Lyle Lovett cross-pollinating with Gilbert Gottfried and you can pretty much imagine what these guys look like. The shit is worse than Down's syndrome.

28 days later we find a guy known only as Jim. Jim was once a bicycle courier with a bad haircut who had the misfortune of plowing his dumb ass into the front end of an oncoming truck. As a result he was sent to the hospital where he lapsed into a coma. Now what Jim doesn't realize is that while he was busy pissing and drooling all over himself, the world went to shit. The RAGE spread like wildfire and it took less than a month for everyone in England to become infected. Jim wakes up and is amazed to discover that no one else is present in the hospital. He wanders out into the street and staggers around the London Bridge. The streets are silent -no people, no animals, no Kelly Osbourne. Wisps of paper blow past him as his desperate cries of "HELLO" echo throughout the empty streets.

Jim wanders into a church where he finds an ocean of ugly. There are corpses littered everywhere. An infected priest wanders out and tries to make jambalaya out of Jim. Jim brains him with a piece of wood and runs out of the church. A few more infected begin flopping about the place and chase after Jim. But Jim's life is spared by the timely arrival of Selena and Mark. Selena is a balls to the wall black woman who doesn't take shit from anyone. Mark is…well, just Mark. Selena and Mark firebomb the hell out of a few of these disfigured bozos and bring Jim to safety. Selena is now in the position to explain to Jim what has happened in the last 28 days. Jim feels compelled to find his family despite the fact that he knows they are dead. He eventually tracks down their moldy corpses and discovers that mum and dad downed a bottle of poison to avoid becoming infected with RAGE. So now the last three human survivors hole up inside of Jim's house. Selena explains that RAGE victims don't cotton to the light all that much, and they'll have better odds of surviving outside during the daytime. Until then, they have to sit in the dark. Note: It is never explained why the infected fear the light of day so much. But I guess it's just a convenient way to maintain that steady creep-factor by giving them nocturnal habits. Like the song says, the freaks come out at night.

Now Jim isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the cupboard. While Selena and Mark are upstairs, Jim lights a candle so he can go through some of his old photos. It doesn't matter that they told Jim that light might attract RAGE victims. He's just selfish that way I guess. A few infected take note of the candlelight and burst in through the windows. Selena and Mark race downstairs and hack the shit out of these two clowns. But unfortunately, it appears as if Mark may have swallowed some of that RAGE goo. Selena doesn't waste any time and she hacks Mark to pieces right before Jim's startled eyes. She doesn't go for an immediate headshot either, no no no. She insures that the agony of death is a painfully prolonged process. Jim asks Selena how she knew that Mark was infected. Selena kind of dodges the issue muttering some bullshit about how she had seen it in his eyes. Yeah, whatever. She likewise tells Jim that if she ever suspects that he is infected, she'll cut him down in a heartbeat. Poor Jim. Of all the people in England for him to shack up with, he has to get stuck with the trigger-happy whack-a-loon.

But the following day proves to be a bit more prosperous. Selena and Jim eventually find a middle-aged man named Frank and his adolescent daughter Hannah. Frank and Hannah are overjoyed to actually find others who can speak in complete sentences and welcome them into their apartment where they enjoy crème de menthe. Frank reveals that he has been monitoring radio broadcasts and has picked up a recording by some rogue military faction in Manchester who claims to have the cure for infection. Yeah, right. And I have a fourth nipple.

En route to Manchester, they stop at a perfectly preserved grocery store and begin shopping. Naturally, meats and fruit are no longer viable, but there are plenty of candy bars and whisky. In a moment of levity, Frank pays for his groceries by leaving his credit card at the checkout line. They miraculously manage to shove four shopping carts worth of shit into Frank's car and head off. There is a brief bit of adventure, where they find themselves forced to drive through an underground tunnel. Jim complains that this is a really stupid idea, but Frank doesn't care. He's got top-shelf Brandy in his system and he's looking to burn some tarmac. Yeee-haw! He plows through barricades of crud and reams of garbage until finally busting a tire midway through the tunnel. So now the tension heats up as the group desperately strives to switch out the tire before some more shit eating mongoloids arrive. The infected victims come out in throngs and begin battering the car door. But Frank manages to get his shit together in time for them to make a speedy escape.

Some time later, they stop to get some gas. As Frank is siphoning gas out of an oil truck, Jim goes into a shack to get a cheeseburger. I have no idea why he does this. Surely, he realizes that any kind of meat he manages to find would be spoiled right? And I'm pretty certain that cheese and veggies left out with no discernable means to keep them chilled would not prove very appetizing either. I guess Jim never heard of a little thing called ECOLI! It doesn't really matter much though. Jim never finds his cheeseburger. What he does find however, is some twelve-year-old kid who had apparently succumbed to RAGE. Without hesitation, Jim bashes the little nipple nibbler over the head with a baseball bat killing him. He doesn't tell the others about his encounter.

So finally the group gets to the Manchester welcoming station. As they look into the distance, they can see the entire city in flames. Frank gets out of the car to stretch his legs. He sees a crow picking at the remains of an infected corpse perched atop a piece of wood sticking out from the side of a shed. He tries to chase the buzzard away, but a drop of blood falls out of the corpses mouth and into Frank's eye. Hannah rushes up to him to see what is wrong, but he pushes her away. Frank gets down with his RAGE self. Before anything else can happen, bullets tear through Frank's flesh bringing him down. Apparently these army goons were present after all. They bring Jim, Selena and Hannah into their compound. The commanding officer of the group is Major Henry West. He shows Jim one of his own infected soldiers Mailer, whom they captured shortly after succumbing to RAGE. They have him chained up outside and they are starving him to see how long an infected person lasts until they keel over from hunger. It becomes known that while the virus has spread to other countries, it has been primarily contained in the UK. The entire is island is one big quarantine. The soldiers stopped receiving global radio transmissions some time ago. The rest of the world apparently forgot all about England. I guess Britney Spears was lip locking with Madonna or something that week.

Everyone gathers together in some dead rich lady's dining room and has a glorious feast of rotten egg omelets. Yummy. Some of the brutes try and get philosophical about their current situation, but it really doesn't boil down too much.

But now there's that whole SEX thing to contend with. See these are army guys, and as everyone knows, they can get pretty squirrelly without a weekly supply of available poontang. And right about now, Selena and Hannah are looking pretty appetizing to some of these gung-ho grunts. A few of them try to pass off some bullshit ideal about repopulating the species, but we know that's a load of crap. They just want some good loving. Jim realizes that the soldiers intend on raping Selena and Hannah and tries to get them out of the compound. But he's taken down fairly quickly and summarily voted off the island. A few grunts take him outside the gates with the intention of killing him. But Jim actually grows a brain at this point in the film, and manages to evade capture. Not only that, but he somehow musters the strength to give these guys a little what-for.

He tries to get back to the compound and rescue Selena and Hannah. He finds that blood crusted moaning guy Mailer still chained up outside. Jim shoots the chains off and lets the goofy idiot go. Mailer attacks some of the would-be rapists and spreads the infection on to them. Selena and Hannah make a break for it and reunite with Jim. They hop into pop's old taxicab and break north. Hannah's driving skills help provide some of the infected with a nice little meal in the form of Major Henry West. The heroes survive and the wicked nasty evil soldier guys all die. Happy day!

28 days later.

Jim, Selena and Hannah are doing their Walton's Mountain thing. They found some nice little cottage on the side of a meadow and spend their days talking to chickens and making quilts. Selena has sewn together a huge sheet of fabric that has HELLO embroidered upon it. As they hear an airplane passing by, they race outside and display the quilt. A fighter jet roars overtop of the cottage, the pilot taking note of the handmade greeting.

What happens next is for you to decide.

Acting / Dialogue
Meh. Nothing really impressive. The dialogue is pretty dry, and at some points can even sound downright corny. The strength of the acting relies more on facial expressions and body language than delivery of lines. Cillian Murphy (Jim) has a few key moments where we find the subtle changes in his character. He does an adequate job at trying to portray a man who is at his core, really no different than any of us. There's a nice shifting of character with Naomie Harris (Selena) as well. She maintains her staunch bravado, but slowly throughout the course of the film, her more humanitarian aspects become known. Brendan Gleeson (Frank) is always fun to watch. Once again, he proves to be the most charismatic character in the whole film. Which by extension means, that he is fated to die. Why? Because geriatrics NEVER make it through these movies. Ever. Just once I'd like to see the old guy survive. It would be a nice change of pace. Megan Burns plays Hannah. I can't really fault the young girl's acting, since they really don't give her anything to do. Her character is completely useless and lends nothing to the picture.

Gore
Subtle yet tasteful. There's not a great amount of gore in this movie, but there is just enough to illustrate the stark depravity that these poor creatures have to suffer through. Mostly, all we ever see are RAGE victims puking up their guts or monkeys being hardwired into television sets. Not much more than that though.

Guilty Pleasures
Nothing worth mentioning here. There is one extremely quick shot of a nekkid RAGE victim flopping her tits about, but the shot is so fast that it's barely even worth noting. For the ladies: You get to see slim Jim's slim jim as he lies prone on the hospital bed in the beginning of the flick. Brits don't have the same repressed fears of the penis like we have over here, so it's not uncommon to see some guy's pecker wriggling about.

The Good
I think that once every ten or so years, you need a film that feeds into the post apocalyptic dementia that we all secretly fear. It's an old formula to be sure, but one that always offers some interesting twists and fresh perspectives. And like many post apocalyptic movies, we never get to see the actual disaster itself. But what 28 Days Later offers as opposed to its contemporaries is the catalyst for the entire downfall of civilization. These events are rarely seen and are usually just mentioned as some sort of afterthought.

Director Danny Boyle evades the costly nature of showing us the broad grisly calamity by keeping the focus on Jim's point of view. We awaken alongside him and like Jim; we silently mouth the words "What the fuck?" to ourselves as the hospital doors open up to the desolation outside. No real answers are given, but the audience is provided with just enough information to fill in the gaps themselves. I appreciate this a helluva lot more than a director who merely throws a situation down onto our unsuspecting laps and says, "Here! Figure it out for your damn selves!" But Boyle's perspective remains rigid and we experience the misery of England right alongside Jim.

Now, thematically these types of movies dance around the same formula. Ultimately, it is shown to us that mankind's basest desires are thousands of times worse than the behavior extolled upon us by whatever monster is pounding at our doors late at night. We are they and they are we and all that happy horseshit. But today's magic word friends and viewers is subtlety. This is Danny boy's greatest strength. The message he is trying to dole out to us is not as heavy handed, as one would expect to find. But at the same time its palpable enough to be noticed by even the most scatterbrained movie watcher. Nothing can ruin a movie more than a preachy director. Thematic text should only be used as an underlying current that helps to string the story together. It should never become the story. Boyle presents his thoughts without speaking down to the audience, and for that I'm grateful. Lesser directors have probably found themselves under the gun several times for making such presumptions about the viewer. And yes, I'm speaking to YOU Mister Shyamalan.

I suppose the primary element of this film is to prove to the audience that human beings are capable of damn near anything if given the initiative. The most poignant example of this is when Jim grease smears the little kid in the burger shack. He dispatches him rather quickly and gives little thought to the fact that this was once a normal well-adjusted child. So Jim is now no longer the average Joe on the street. He is now a murderer and must find a way to cope with that. Jim's attitude towards humanity takes an even darker turn when he is forced to deal with the horny F-Troop gang. He actually seems to take pride in sending these losers to the hereafter. The dehumanization of Jim's character becomes most prevalent when we seem him release Mailer, the captured RAGE victim. This is the height of irresponsibility as far as I'm concerned. Mailer is now free to go and spread the virus even further, potentially wiping out the last vestiges of humanity off the face of the Earth. But Jim doesn't seem to care. His spirit broken, he probably figures the world is better off without us. And who's to say he's wrong? But Jim's humanity experiences an upsurge, by way of his growing feelings toward Selena. Where anybody else would have said, "Fuck this", Jim risks life and limb to get them out of the compound. Because as we all know, the promise of SNATCH is the single greatest motivational tool known to man. Our actions are constantly guided by the magnetic attraction of never ending available pussy. That and Spam. So at the end of the day, the human spirit wins out after all. Peachy.

Now, there is one important factor to this flick that I really must drive home. This is NOT your father's zombie movie. I've tried my best to avoid using the word zombie in this review for fear of casting false impressions. These guys are not slow moving corpses milling about in herds muttering "Moo". These flailing rejects will descend upon you faster than Michael Jackson on a six-year-old. And they don't want to eat your brains either. In fact, these guys don't seem to eat much of anything. They just want to kill you. Period. More specifically, they only want to kill those who aren't already infected with RAGE. Some primal instinct is driving them to recreate the entire world into one roiling mass of hate and bloodshed. And all because some asshole thought it would be cute to force a chimpanzee to watch back-to-back episodes of Full House. So again, don't be fooled into thinking this is a zombie movie, despite the behavior of those involved. This is a movie about what happens when you stick too many probes up an orangutan's ass.

The Bad
28 Rehashed plot devices later. Sometimes it really sucks having this much trivial movie lore trapped inside of my brain. Being a Horror movie God amongst men is NOT what its cracked up to be. Maybe if I was a neophyte youth who had not been bludgeoned with endless hours of horror cinema, I might be able to watch a movie such as this with complete objectivity. But I just fail to find anything in 28 Days Later that isn't completely derivative of an earlier source.

I suppose it all began with Richard Matheson's 1954 bestselling novel I Am Legend. In it, poor Robert Neville wakes up one day and realizes he is the last man on Earth. Well…the last REAL man that is. Everybody else has been turned into vampires. Sound familiar? Well, that's probably because you have by chance seen a quasi-obscure 1971 movie called the Omega Man. In it, Charlton Heston plays the role of Neville and must fight against a cult of albino vampires with bad Afros while saving the life of a spunky black femme fatale. In fact, the Omega Man's heroine Lisa is not altogether different from Selena.

Now even if I were to imagine the possibility that director Danny Boyle may have never even heard of Richard Matheson, he is most certainly familiar with genre director George Romero. Many of the man-vs.-man themes illustrated in 28 Days Later is suspiciously similar to that supplied by Romero's 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead. In fact, shades of Romero's follow-up work Dawn of the Dead can be seen here too. There's an amusing bit in the grocery store where the characters enjoy a bit of levity as the insidious evils of consumerism rears its ugly head. The comparison can be made to the initial shopping mall romp as seen in Dawn of the Dead. But I choose to treat this particular scene as an homage to Romero's work rather than a blatant rip off.

I have a little bit of an issue with the way this movie was filmed. Now Danny Boyle didn't have a lot of euros to spend here so he decided to shoot the whole thing digitally rather than use actual film. While his efforts are impressive, he falls into the trap of using fancy camera tricks to try and make the picture look more expensive than it actually is. There's a growing trend nowadays where DPs insist on shooting action sequences using this quick flutter-shot editing style which is designed more to induce seizure rather than impress the audience. All of the fast paced scenes involve shots that last for less than 1/10th of a second and the end result is a bunch of thrashing bald guys that appear as if they were rendered using stop-motion animation. Another trend that Boyle enables here is the neo stylistic use of fast close ups. Fast close ups must be all the rage now even in England. You've probably seen these effects in films by Guy Ritchie or Darren Aronofsky and even a few MTV video alumni like McG (Yes, that's actually his name. Sounds like an Irish rap artist don't he?). The point being, I am already sick to death of stylish fast motion shots that are meant to seem kewl and cutting edge. It's not kewl. It's not cutting edge. It's the same played out shit we get subjected to year after year. With all of the fast paced spins and turns and angle changes, watching this movie on the big screen was like…was like…well, it was like being a monkey strapped to a bunch of electrodes being forced to watch violent movies. If that was the effect Boyle was going for, then hat's off to him. He succeeded. Thanks Danny. Can I have my stomach back now?

There are also a couple little nitpicks I have to throw out there. Firstly, I have a bit of a problem with Frank's common sense. When we are first introduced to him, he is wearing a padded HAZMAT suit and carrying a police issue riot shield. Both of these items I would think would come in very handy in the days to come. But does Frank bring these items with him? Nope. I have no idea what he does with the shield, but I'm willing to bet that if he had worn this protective gear, things may have worked out differently for him. On top of that, Frank has a bunch of buckets and shit on the roof of his apartment in the hopes of catching some water. Now, I have no real issue with this plan, but if you look closely, you will notice that half of the items on the roof are actually laundry hampers. You know…those things that have HOLES in them. I'm willing to bet that Frank has never heard the joke about screen doors and submarines. There's also the matter of Frank's taxicab-of-endless-surplus. These guys manage to fit four FULL grocery carts full of snacks and booze into the back of this thing; not to mention keeping room for four passengers and whatever clothes they decided to bring along. Where the hell did they put all of this shit? Thank God none of them cracked out a fart or else the whole thing would've gone kablooey. I half expected to see a troupe of Chinese acrobats come springing out of the trunk of the car. And speaking of cars, did anyone else find it noticeably odd the lack of discarded transportation to be found in London? Sure, there are a few cars found floating around, but not very many. And certainly not enough to account for a city which once boasted several million Londoners. I'm beginning to think that a bunch of the infected took all of the extraneous vehicles down to the speedway for some saucy British Nascar fun. Hell, herein lies a viable sequel methinks - 28 Laps Later!

The largest detraction in 28 Days Later however is the fact that the primary cast members simply aren't very interesting. Jim is presented to us in the shirt-n-tie package of the every-man, and I suppose that works well in making him more accessible to viewers. But there's one small problem with that: The every-man is FUCKING BORING! Nobody wants to watch movies about average normal everyday guys. If I wanted that, I'd simply walk across the street and watch my bald pale overweight neighbor with the lazy eye mow the lawn with his shirt off. We're Americans dammit! We need action heroes with big bulging muscles, over the top accents and cool cars! We need machismo and sex and sweat and cursing and bullets and explosions! We don't just glamorize our action stars -we elect them governor for fuck's sake! We don't want to see some stark naked git clamoring about the streets of London looking for his lost toothbrush. Where's the fun in that? Seriously though, even though I may engage in a bit of hyperbole while describing our American instinctual lust for boobies, one-liners and computer generated monsters, I just can't see how anyone could find Jim's character all that compelling. And there is zero chemistry to be found between him and Selena. While Selena actually has that oft-touted mythological characteristic sometimes known as a PERSONALITY, it just doesn't mesh well with Jim's dour Mayberry-inspired gosh golly shucks demeanor. And speaking of things that make you go phooey, the character of Hannah is less than useless. I don't understand why she's even here. This broad has zippo going on. She pretty much takes everything in stride, and even the death of her father doesn't do much aside from giving her a bit more of a cynical approach to life. Trying to find a spark of anything remotely interesting about this character is about as futile as trying to fold pudding.

Okay, okay. Right about now, you're probably all ready to hire a hit man to take me out because of this seemingly unfavorable review right? Truth be told, I don't really have that much against the movie. On the whole, I'm largely indifferent towards it (Hence my 5/10 rating). Different films speak to different people, and this one just happened to elicit a few groans from me as I suffered flashbacks from every single movie I've ever seen that made use of these tired old formulas. And I'm not one of these assholes that spill their diaper drippings all over the Internet crying foul over the lack of originality in current movies. I'm an asshole for entirely DIFFERENT reasons. Hell, I wouldn't be much of a horror movie fan if I allowed my nuts to shrivel up over every unoriginal trick that came along. But for some unspoken reason, 28 Days Later seems to get placed on a somewhat higher pedestal than movies like Scream or Jason X. Even Roger Ebert gives it 3 out of 5 stars, but I half suspect he does so because its an indie British film and reviewers love to cream themselves over foreign flicks for some reason. I have a sneaky suspicion that if this exact same movie were directed by Michael Bay, Ebert would have no problem giving it a sound lashing. Now I'm not one to be kind to a movie simply because its independent or foreign. Nope, not me. I'll rip the ass out of it just like I would a big budget production. No free rides here.

28 Days Later is certainly not what I would call a shitty film; not by any stretch. If you haven't previously had your skull caved in by the likes of Clockwork Orange, The Omega Man, Night of the Living Dead and Road Warrior, I'm sure you will find this movie to be a dark and suspenseful trip into the desolate wastelands of a post apocalyptic nightmare. It's kind of like going to Trenton.

"Repent! The end is extremely fucking nigh!"

- This was actually some graffiti written on the wall of a church that Jim wanders in to.

"See this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea!"

- Jim

"You were thinking that you'll never hear another piece of original music again. That you'll never read a book that hasn't already been written or see a film that hasn't already been shot."

- Selena to Jim

"That was longer than a heartbeat."

- Jim reacting to one of Selena's earlier comments

"Grarrrghh Sfhilghmphhh Arrgholhghhh Rraggrrhhh!!!"

- This is the typical shit you'd expect an infected person to say.