28 Weeks Later 2007

As with it's predecessor, 28 Weeks Later has generally not aged badly over the last 16 years. I think this film is in some ways not as good as 28 Days Later, but in other ways improves upon it. Robert Carlyle is always a joy to watch, as he's a fantastic actor. The Infected are not zombies, as they're still living, not undead (see https://28dayslater.fandom.com/wiki/The_Infected for more details) but they are as psychotically brutal and savage, fast and relentless as before, and the pacing of the film is good enough to hold interest, and keep you hooked, throughout. There a a few very convenient plot holes that are clearly there to drive the plot but don't make any logical sense (a bit like the Infected hoards) such as:
1) How were Don's two children able to escape so easily, and not stopped more quickly? Surely there would have been more than just the one sniper watching the entrance from a rooftop? Guards should have been positioned all around the facility, both inside and out, and certainly all around the perimeter of the "safe zone".
2) Yes, she was strapped down in a secure facility, but why was Don's wife ever left completely unguarded? They'd ascertained that she could be "the saviour of the human race" because of her not being affected by the virus (part from the eye thing) despite being infected by it? As "humanity's only hope" security should have been over-the-top, not non-existent.
3) Why the hell did Don, knowing full-well that she was infected, and that bodily fluid exchange would definitely lead to infection, give her a full-on, open-mouthed kiss? OK, he was full of remorse for abandoning her to die (or so he'd thought), but she'd told him that she still loved him - possibly this was a calculated revenge plan, developed over the six months she was surviving in their home, but either way, to kiss her like that was stupid and suicidal. It also made him directly responsible for every single person that died as a result of him getting infected.
4) Why was he so obsessed with killing his children? The whole premise of the Rage Virus is that it inhibited all logic and reason, created an uncontrollable rage to attack anyone that moved, so why did he have this single-minded focus on killing his children? He only seemed to kill anyone else when they got in the way, not just because they were there, like all of the other Infected.

It is for these reasons (and the first four below) that I have rated the film one mark lower than 28DL (8 instead of 9), but please don't let these points stop you from watching a very good film.

In the bigger picture, the implication seemed to be that the American military relied purely on remote observation, in the shortest possible time (28 weeks/7 months) from doomsday - the 28th day after the UK mainland officially fell to the onslaught of the Infected - to make the assumptions that:
1) the virus wasn't transmittable across species despite the fact that it had been transmitted to humans from chimpanzees in a research lab.
2) the Infected were finally all dead from starvation/dehydration so, with no active hosts or ways to transmit, the virus just fizzled out and disappeared.
3) it was safe for the military to start cleaning up "The Isle of Dogs" - a suburb of London surrounded on three sides by the River Thames, so only one way in, one way out, by land. But one way was enough…
4) that said clean-up had been thorough enough to render the above a 100% "safe zone".

This infection - actually the 'Rage Virus' - was a highly contagious virus with a 20-second gestation period, that killed off the majority of the UK's population (at the time this was set) of 57.67 million people. There were some mass evacuations of uninfected, so even if you halved the above number, that would make approx. 28 million infected people rampaging across the UK. Bearing this in mind, the speed and apparent carelessness of the NATO clean-up forces was shockingly incompetent and foolhardy, especially when military forces were repeatedly overwhelmed during the original outbreak. All it would take - as was demonstrated in the film - is one person to become infected, then successfully infect another, for another "extinction-level event" to occur. Therefore, in my (completely non-militarily-trained) mind, any post-outbreak cleanup operation would, as an absolute necessity need to do the following:

1) Clean-up teams must always be at least three personnel. Nobody should ever enter any building on their own or be out of direct earshot (or if practical, even eyesight) of at least one of their team members.
2) Firstly, clear and thoroughly disinfect the entire of the Isle of Wight. Then quarantine facilities could be set up there to process any survivors, to ensure that they are definitely not infected, of even carriers, of the Rage Virus. This way, any unplanned outbreaks could be easily contained and eliminated without risking mainland infection.
3) Starting from Portsmouth (as there is already transport in place to and from the IoW) thoroughly search through literally every single room of every single building of any kind, and all trees, caves, vehicles, or anywhere else where survivors - or the Infected, either alive or dead - could be lurking, all the way up the entire UK mainland, including any other 'satellite' islands such as The Shetland Islands. I'm assuming that the virus never reached the Irish mainland - if it did, then that would need to be processed in the same fashion. Drag the dead into the street and incinerate them. Survivors need transporting to the quarantine facilities for processing.
4) Extremely strict, zero-tolerance, measures would have to be enforced for all military personnel that nothing is stolen from any property entered, for any reason, under threat of court-martial/imprisonment, and should be considered to be grave-robbing.

5) As part of the building clean-up, all food and drink items, clothing, bedding, furniture, etc would need to be dragged out and destroyed, and thorough cleaning/disinfection from ceiling to floor would be required (just like actually happened post-Covid-19) to ensure that no residue from bodily fluids (e.g. saliva from sneezing) remained on any surfaces that could potentially still be harbouring the virus.
6) Specialists could then be brought in, under military guard/protection, to truly ascertain that no animals, particularly carnivorous ones - rats, crows, dogs, etc - are carrying the virus, even if they're not affected by it, as they could potentially retransmit back to humans. Further specialists would be required to check reservoirs and other water sources/treatment centres, sewage treatment centres, etc.
7) As each building, then each street, then each village, town, and city were fully sanitised, they would be sealed off and abandoned but under military guard, until the entire operation was complete, nationwide.
8) All military personnel involved with on-the-ground clearance, and all the aforementioned specialists would need to be checked at the end of each day to ensure compliance with the above rules, and also be provided with regular medical checks to ensure that they are not unknowingly harbouring the virus.
9) People with specific skills (ideally UK survivors) would need to be brought in first to bring the nation's infrastructure back online - power, utilities, water processing, food production, medical facilities, waste processing, education and training centres, at the very least. This would probably need doing one town/city at a time.
10) I predict that all of the above would take at least five years, maybe ten, depending on the manpower. During this time, the European Parliament, any survivors of the UK governments and other world powers would need to formulate a strategy for how to process all the empty houses, personal property (e.g. photos, etc), business sites and other public buildings, as well as an effective way to restart the UK economy.

Only once all of the above is complete could the UK ever be truly considered to be "safe and clear of the virus, and ready for mass repopulation by displaced UK citizens". This repopulation would itself be a long, slow, complex process requiring careful management. Perhaps the final chapter of this story could be called "28 Years Later" because that's probably a more realistic estimate of the timescale needed for the UK to be more or less "back to normal". I doubt that such a film would hold the same level of interest to viewers though.

The sequel that was released five years after 28 days later is a good second movie - it picks up the story 28 weeks later. All of England was eradicated and all the people infected did finally die, so a special task force of NATO tries to repopulate the Island again. Under the new arrivers, two children are brought in, something the medical officer does not agree with, as England is still considered a danger zone outside the save fortifications that NATO built. The two kids are refugees that fly back in to meet their father. However things get sour, and soon there is another outbreak of the virus. After containment fails, NATO protocol dictates to kill all humans, no matter if infected or not. And thus a small group including our two kids must again fight against both: humans and zombies.

While the first movie was clearly a low-budget movie, this one is clearly not - the images are more crisp, the special effects are larger, we get a lot of different wide-area CGI effects, like whole streets lighting up in fire from NATO helicopter bombings, blown up buildings, we get gas attacks that produce fog walls that are many stories high, we have a number of helicopters, a plane, a car chase that ends in an underground tunnel. Yes - compared to 28 days later, the game has been stepped up big time. Also when it comes to the list of actors (see below).

Again we get everything we loved from the first movie, however, some of it here and there lost it’s novelty so it is not as fascinating as it was in the first movie. Also the first movie, due to its low-budget nature had a lot of character, and parts of it (not all!) get lost. However, it gains in more graphical violence, so it’s more of a horror movie with much more gore, which might be one reason for loosing some of its charms as it becomes more conventional. But as the first movie, this one isn’t conventional either, it is quite atmospheric and emotional, again it has enormously great acting, it takes its time (though less than in the first movie) it has a rather interesting story, and again you will find philosophical questions that can be asked and answered with this movie. The story is not straight but has some twists in it.

For the cast we have Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Cathrine McCormack, Iris Elba, … all move veterans, some of which did movies in the 80s, most of them in the 90s and those who where younger did also already do a number of good movies before 28 weeks later. And again, this somewhat was the charm of 28 days later - to have a cast of actors that no one has seen before and that where so good that their career sky-rocketed. It is of course nice to see familiar faces - but well… I don’t know, I liked that about 28 days, and I miss It in 28 weeks. However, not entirely though: Imogen Poots is a first-timer. She had a minor role in V for Vendetta and directly after that here she gets one of the leads. And boy is she good. I especially loved here in Long way down, which I consider her best preformances from all the movies I know her in; this is however also absolutely great and again - after this performance she has gotten a number of offers and stared in a number of films.

You may have noticed the slight dissapointment when comparing it to the first movie - that is just my opinion of course - I know a number of people who like the second one better than the first. Me however not. But that does not mean that this movie is bad in general. Besides my critics, nearly everything I’ve written in my review to the first movie also applies to this movie (with the exceptions of course being pointed out in this review). So in the end we get a great, innovative, emotional, perfectly acted, perfectly filmed, and perfectly soundtracked movie that is worth watching and that can be watched a number of times without getting boring. I will award it 8/10 points.

And so, I am looking forward to 28 months later, which - to my latest knowledge - is still work in progress. So keep your fingers crossed!