28 WEEKS LATER - 18
Where 2002's horror hit 28 Days Later saw a confused Cillian Murphy pottering around the deserted streets of London this belated sequel sees what the vacated capital would be like if run by Team America. As you'd expect that means more guns, more helicopters, more jets and just about anything you can think of to throw into a crazed monster of a sequel that doggedly goes for the jugular scene after scene until the drained audience is released. The Yank invasion certainly increases the stakes when it comes to the thrill of the chase, offering a spectacular firework display in comparison to Christopher Eccelston's limp resistance when the British army were wiped out in the predecessor, but all the flashes and bangs hide a thin sci-fi plot there to simply keep the Rage virus alive and a set of identikit characters; a bland family unit versus the usual platoon of US jarheads.
28 weeks after the virus was released, which turns those 'Infected' into slathering, red-eyed killing machines, the population of the UK has been decimated but the virus has at least died out. America ("coming again to save the mother fucking day") have moved their boys into Canary Wharf and started allowing refugee Brits back into the country to be "repatriated". Two children, Andy (Muggleton) and Tammy (Poots), are reunited with their father Don (Carlyle) who has a dark secret about leaving their mother to die in the film's intense, claustrophobic prologue which sees the couple trapped in a remote farmhouse. When Alice (McCormack) does turn up in the army's infirmary it quickly transposes that the virus has found a new way of surviving and wreaks havoc across the Isle of Dogs letting survivors do the usual dash for safety, this time dodging wildly psychopathic Infected and blindly led grunts ordered to kill anything that moves.
The first movie was a nuanced study of humanity's evil side, how cold, calculated acts done through conscious thought rather than blind rage were more terrifying, but focus on the human characters rather than constant action was a budget constraint. In 28 Weeks Later budget can be damned and the thinly veiled politics of the US chaotically occupying a war zone is there, not as any great social comment, but to use the insane movie dumbness that comes with such a set-up. It's almost played for laughs, plenty of phrases like "code red", "lockdown", "extermination", quickly hint that they have no chance in hell of containing the virus and their eventual plan is to shut everyone in one room with Plan B consisting of carpet bombing Canary Wharf. It doesn't solve anything but it looks spectacular and on these terms the movie has to be congratulated, offering impossible shots of London and putting its Oyster Card to good use by taking in the deserted sights of the Millennium Bridge, Trafalgar Square and culminating in a first look at the new Wembley.
But rather than merely expanding on the scenery of the first movie it makes sure there is plenty of action and offers streets awash with chemical weapons, a creepy descent into the pitch black tube and even a crazy mass severing of limbs by helicopter blade that fans of Braindead would smirk at. Ultimately this gives the final third an episodic feel and, while Spanish director Fresnadillo proves he can handle the blood-spattering gore, he largely leaves the ragtag cast to chip in with dull lines whenever they aren't under attack. The kids we're supposed to be routing for are unsympathetic largely because they were the ones who got everyone into the mess in the first place but mainly because they don't seem to have any sort of remorse about it. Carlyle does well with a haunted character and promises some early intrigue but once he turns into the enemy he hasn't got a lot to work with, of course no-one except for Begbie can do insane aggression this convincingly.
With creative team Danny Boyle and Alex Garland taking backseat Executive Producer positions and none of the original's characters returning Fresnadillo does a great job of making this still feel part of the universe they created, albeit one pumped on steroids. The crisp yet frantic DV look is recaptured, expect more eye-gouging and that brooding, doom-filled Godspeed You Black Emperor song not once, not twice, but thrice during the proceedings. Yes it's incredibly indulgent but with the US as barmy as the Infected it makes for a gloriously OTT sci-fi horror that doesn't know the meaning of British reserve and instead leaps at your face while vomiting blood into your popcorn.
