Let's be honest right up front on this one; 28 Days Later is a zombie movie.
Yeah, I know; the aren't dead, they're infected by a rage virus. They are zombies; shut it!
The infected people are clearly written as zombies, with the whole 'rage virus' thing being a way of attempting to vary the origin story.
Need proof? The infected not attack each other. If they were infected with a virus that makes them angry, the would have no reason not to attack each other. Zombies don't attack zombies, because they are drawn to the living; but angry people do not attack only the calm, angry people attack each other. It may be called a 'rage virus', and it may be born from research into anger and violence, but it is clearly a zombie virus, albeit one that doesn't technically kill it's host.
It also has all the trappings of a zombie movie; a viral outbreak, a flash forward to an apocalyptic setting, a lone group of survivors clubbing together and making tough choices; even a "mankind is the real enemy" final act.
It's also a blatant advert for Pepsi and Mars inc. for at least it's first 20 minutes.
So, product placement aside, how does it fare? Very well for the first three quarters, better than average thereafter.
The not-really-zombies are the fast variety. Normally I hate that, but the cover of "not technically zombies" serves the movie well in that regard, and makes for some great chase sequences.
The famous deserted scenes of our hero wandering a post-apocalyptic London are eerie and beautiful, and the interactions with the 2 main groups of survivors he meets are differed enough to be interesting.
The problem lies in the aforementioned man as the enemy plot. Once our heroes meet the movies secondary antagonists, this basic but great zombie movie quickly gets much darker; man's inhumanity to man (or in this case, woman) is far more chilling than anything a pseudo-zombie can dish out. This segment of the film is more disturbing, and in its own way more interesting, than anything that's happened upto that point... But it's just not as entertaining.
That said, the whole movie still hangs together nicely, and for once a zombie movie has a satisfying conclusion.
Showing posts with label 28 Days Later. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 28 Days Later. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 April 2014
Saturday, 29 March 2014
28 Days Later - Lisa's Review
This week finally a movie I'm pretty familiar with and one I've seen a number of times. Firstly, forgive me if my review comes across like this is a zombie movie. This is exactly how I see this movie, although that wouldn't strictly be the case. I'd be pretty surprised if many people hadn't seen this movie, but let's continue with a plot of sorts.
We start the movie in a research laboratory where animal activists are attempting to free caged chimps. Unfortunately the chimps are infected with a deadly virus called 'Rage' which is spread by bites. Anyone who is infected becomes, pretty much - zombies! They like to eat flesh and don't seem to have much in the way of original personality or intelligence. One thing does differ considerably though. These guys are fast! They move as fast as a fast healthy guy. I know zombie movies which show the continuous slow, plodding zombie, which never seems to tire and follows you everywhere (and who will eventually catch up with you, even though you are running and it's shuffling) are more popular with most horror fans. I however prefer these rabid, fast scuttling guys. The 'infected' that you quite simply will never outrun (unless you're in training for the next Olympics). So back to the research lab. One of the activists is, of course, bitten by a very angry chimp and is immediately infected (yes, that's another thing I should have added, infection is immediate). The activist in turn infects every human in the room and so it starts.
So I've told you where it came from, how it came to be and what we have running loose, what next? As the movie progresses, we find out that the infection has spread throughout the entire UK. Most people are either dead, infected or have left the UK. There have however been reports of infection in other countries also. To bring the title into play, our main character, Jim (played by Cillian Murphy - him of the bluest of eyes in an early feature role) has just woken up in a hospital in London 28 days after the initial outbreak of infection. He has been unconscious following an accident where he was knocked off his bicycle (he is a courier). As Jim leaves the completely abandoned hospital, we see the movies most iconic scenes. The one's which make the hairs stand up on your arms. The one's where you ask yourself "How the hell did they manage that?" So many people asked themselves how this movies director managed to grind London not only to a halt, but to make it appear completely abandoned and desolate, that it's a question in Google if you type part of the question in. We hear a wonderfully haunting piano play as Jim walks around London landmark after landmark, to nothing... nobody. Flyers looking for missing relatives are pinned up in Piccadilly Circus covering entire surfaces. The air of complete desolation and loneliness is palpable.
The movie follows Jim as he discovers his parents have committed suicide rather than suffer the inevitable infection. He meets up with other survivors and tries to work out where to go and what to do. Where is safe? Something he does learn very early on, is that no matter how much someone means to you or how attached you are, if they become infected, you must immediately kill them. The first killing of this nature is quite horrific and brutal.
Eventually Jims little team of survivors hear a pre-recorded radio broadcast from the army in Manchester, promising a safe haven. They claim to have a cure to the infection, so Jim and his compatriots set off to Manchester and here we have another piece of amazing footage - a massive expanse of the M1 completely deserted but for the car of our team making their way north.
I don't want to give away much more in case anyone reading (who am I kidding?) wants to watch it. Needless to say the army camp isn't all it's cracked up to be and we see nastiness, torture and abuse of women, something not entirely out of place in a war situation in the real world and perfectly illustrated here. Even with all the gore, death and mutilation, it is still the manner in which the women are treated that makes me feel most sick. It's as if man has lost its last vestiges of humanity.
I'm not going to give any more away or hint towards it being a good or bad ending. It's an ending. To be fair, for me, I felt the movie started out much better than it continued and ended. It lost it's oopmh a bit for me. Even though I think the movie could have been better, it was still an entertaining watch, so a Recommended from me.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Week 149 - 28 Days Later
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