Review: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Weeks Later is the sequel to 28 Days Later... I have read and heard people say that it is incredible how a sequel can be so much better than the original, and they're right (sarcasm) it is unbelievable, I simply don't believe it.

The original was a story about survival and making human choices, and reflecting upon the end of the world scenario, but 28 Weeks is based on one single difficult choice, and I will admit they could not have chosen a better actor for the part (Robert Carlyle).   The movie starts with a couple who are holed up with a small group of survivors and after opening their doors to a child they become noticed by the horde outside, they couple becomes separated because the husband just wants to flee and the wife wants to rescue the child...  naturally in a show of cowardice Robert Carlyle runs away leaving his wife at the mercy of the infected, one could also argue that it was not cowardice but since the couple had their kids vacationing in Spain at least one parent should survive for their sake.

Take away Carlyle's excellent acting and you are left with a piece of trash, with no logic whatsoever, were infected human beings break through boarded up doors like they were balsa wood, 27 weeks after the original outbreak the US army is helping maintain a quarantine and is starting to repatriate people to England.

These are the things that just don't make sense to me

1) If you are one of the survivors that barely escaped would you not try to put as much distance between you and the infected, why would you move back?

2) Why would you bring your children back from Spain to live in the quarantine zone?

3) The kids leave the quarantine zone to go and find their old house, the military watches them leave but they do nothing to stop them, they later send helicopters and a strike team to their area... when they could have just yelled out, "hey, you can't leave the quarantine zone!!!"

4) They find an infected person that did not turn... an extreme rarity, but they just take a blood sample and do nothing, leave the person on a stretcher without guard let alone a scientist for observation... it's like Sir Galahad finding the Holy Grail and saying "well, I'll keep searching, maybe I'll find something really valuable, no use returning home JUST with the GRAIL"

5) The marines do not use their radios to coordinate.

6) When they are fighting a horde of Ragers they only use sniper rifles from the roof, but when they are following 4 humans they suddenly blanket the whole city with gas and have fully prepared haz-mat suit wearing marines with flame throwers.

7) And then, what pisses me off about horror movies, no matter how many turns and twists our heroes take all over the city, they always end up right next to the one zombie that also escapes the gas, the flame throwers, the blanket bombing...

The idea was good, but the movie as a whole is not up to par with the original.

To see a list of all the films I've reviewed click here