By Brandon Nolta

Great Britain has been overrun. Cities that aren’t deserted are full of corpses. In the aftermath of the rage virus as seen in Danny Boyle’s brilliant 28 DAYS LATER, the sun seems to have pretty well set on England. There are a few people still alive; as the scene opens on the sequel, 28 WEEKS LATER, Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are holed up in a little cottage with a few others, hoping to outlast the infected. But, they’re soon discovered, and in the ensuing carnage, Don escapes, leaving Alice behind.

Now, 28 weeks have elapsed since the infection began, and the U.S. Army has come in, leading a NATO mission to reclaim England. Among the refugees returning are Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton; no really, that’s his name), Don’s kids who were trapped in Spain when things went down. Don meets them and breaks the bad news, and they try to get on with life. However, the kids head back to their house in violation of quarantine and find something interesting: their mom, who’s infected but shows no symptoms. She’s a carrier, something nobody gets a chance to tell Don before he gets all smoochy with her. Now, the kids are on the run from a new surge of the infected, and a soldier not too keen on shooting civilians (Jeremy Renner), a compassionate army doc (Rose Byrne) and a helicopter pilot (Harold Perrineau) are the only allies the kids have as they get caught between the infected and the U.S. Army’s kill-‘em-all approach to containing the outbreak.

28 WEEKS LATER had some big shoes to fill, and it doesn’t quite manage to do the job. The characters are more stock than the last bunch, and some of the immediacy and chills are robbed by sticking with film as opposed to the grainy digital video Boyle used to such great effect. Plus, the writing just isn’t as sharp as Alex Garland’s. I was so caught up in the first one that when a soldier pointed out the fact that only England could have been affected by the virus due to its transmission speed, it came as a surprise; there were no such moments in this one.


That’s not to say, however, the movie isn’t good. The movie is fast-paced and nicely shot, with a couple of unnerving set pieces (one seen entirely through a sniper’s night scope comes to mind). The actors do what they can, with Renner and Boyle especially standing out as the two truly sympathetic American characters (the fact that Byrne is an Aussie we can ignore for now). There’s a little too much shaky cam work for me, but overall 28 WEEKS LATER is a good, if not as well-done, follow-up to its predecessor.

The DVD isn’t a deluxe package, but it’s not too shabby. In addition to the very nice transfer and sound (both crystal sharp on my TV), you can enjoy a commentary track from the director and one of the co-writers, deleted scenes with optional commentary, a handful of making-of docs, a passel of trailers and, most interestingly, a couple of graphic novel presentations that fill in some of the gaps between the development of the rage virus and its escape. Done all in panel form with recorded dialogue, it’s simultaneously interesting in a retro sense (I remember animated comics like this from the early 1980s) and creepy. Overall, 28 WEEKS LATER may not be in the same league as 28 DAYS LATER or DAWN OF THE DEAD, but it will make a nice addition to the library of anybody who likes to see a nicely done horror flick. And, if you don’t like France, the ending makes clear that they get theirs. Take it as you like.