Review By: Benjamin Lee
BenjaminLee@TheCinemaSource.com

Without doubt one of the finest and most important British films of the 21st century, 28 Days Later also managed to become a surprise breakout success when it was released in America. It’s ability to imbed it’s horror with a heart made it an instant cult classic.

Word that a sequel was being developed, and that it wasn’t to be directed by Days’ Danny Boyle was quite a worry. When a film is so perfectly contained, one always wonders what a follow-up will bring to the table. So, as a lover of the original, it was with huge trepidation that I sat down to watch 28 Weeks Later.

Luckily the film kicks off with one hell of an opening sequence. We join a house filled with a random selection of survivors, including Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack), who are locked up in the farmhouse, their supplies slowly dwindling. An unexpected attack on the house results in Don being forced to make a shocking decision and one which will come back to haunt him later.

We then follow the attempts being made to repopulate Britain, now that the virus is believed to have died, or at least been contained. People are being flown back into the country in the hopes that civilisation may return to normal. Included in this batch are Don’s two children Andy (newcomer Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots) who return to their father, questioning what happened to their mother. At the same time we follow military doctor Scarlet (Rose Byrne) who is worried that the virus may return. A worry that turns out to be frighteningly real.

After the initial opening scene, I was well and truly on board for what appeared to be yet more of the same. The film kicks off with a tone very reminiscent of the first. Nerve-shredding, exciting but also managing to pack a powerful emotional punch. It’s when the US military get involved though that genericity prevails and the heart slowly stops to beat. The action quota has been raised about tenfold and as thrilling as many of the money-shots may be, they’re mostly soulless.

The main attempt to make the action scenes more powerful is by repeating the wonderful Brian Eno track which played during the finale of the original. Except in this one it’s used four times, meaning its effect is rather minimal by the end credits.

It also doesn’t help that one of the main reasons the virus actually returns is based on a wilfully stupid error in judgement by two characters that I found myself sighing in annoyance throughout. When the action gets started, there are some finely structured scenes. An underground attack in particular is effective as the virus spreads across a crowd of people trying to escape. The scenes of London, deserted however, reminded me of seeing the dinosaurs again in The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. Once you’ve seen it the first time, the effect is ...