First off, I'm new in the neighbourhood. I'm not expecting anyone to ever read this, so it is essentially going to be used as an archive for my thoughts. Anyway, I saw 28 Weeks Later last weekend, and thought I would compile my response. If anyone does read this, there are spoiulers ahead.
I look at tis film much as I look at Planet of the Apes 3, 4, and 5. Regardless of their dimished quality, it just seems natural that they would be made. Their is a tradition in /horror franchises to make sequels which are merely a bastardized version of the roiginal film, and accomplish nothing on their own. Few franchises escape from this trap. The reason for bringing up the Planet of the Apes is that the sequels were not very good, but I do have a great deal of respect for them because they expanded upon the original. Rather than mimicking it, they worked in concert to create a larger and more in depth world. 28 Weeks Later did the same thing. It had a stylistic basis in the original, but the content was looking at everyting which was ignored by the original. Days created an interestig ensemble cast and asked what happens to law, order, the family unit - essentially, what happens to the social constructs of humanity at the end of the world? Days made a stylistic choice to focus exclusvely on the individuals, and ot the masses. That was all viewed as self explanatory, panic chaos, disbelief, etc. It was ugly, and people died in genocidal quantities. Days chose to show this only in the acting of the survivors, as the reflection of the horror upon their psyches. Weeks went simultaneously forward and backward. It went forward in time, but retreated to within a stable human society, thus showiing us what we could only hear about the first time through. Whether this was a wise decision of not, it works in tandem with the original enough that it does garner my respect. Anyway, with that said, everything they changed in this film was for the worse. It felt like watching the original story as reinterpreted by American sociiety. Every change they made reminded me of some American precedent. There was a scene in which a helicopter pilot tilted his helicopter forward and flew into a crowd of zombies. This was straight out of Grindhouse. Thats not to say that Weeks ripped off Grindhouse, but it was effective in Planet Terror because it was hilariously stupid and over the top. It was the obligatory CGI action shot which defied all laws of reality and plausibility. To see this parody used in serious context was just disturbing. EDIT: I am well aware that both were probably intended as homages to Dawn of the Dead, but they each took it a step further delving into the world of stupid CGI action scenes.
The military seemed straight out of Half Life, to me. They are inadvertantly working in tandem with the monsters in their systematic, facelss destruction. In related videogame-ness, the zombies were here manifest in one man who had vestiges of intelligence. He was the recurring superzobie like Nemesis in Resident Evil: Nemesis. Romero reinvented zombies to be more of a force of nature than an arcane monster. Since Nihgt of the Living Dead, almost every zombie story has focused on the idea of survival and only survival. Here they - sort of - ruined this by suggesting that their may be a cure. The film became, not about orinary people survivng, but about great noble ambitions of saving the world. Luckily this was offset by the ending which, though not explicitly stated, seemed to imply that the boy was not a cure, but did become a zombie and infect the mainland. I really did like this ending, since it made the Americanization of the film seem, not derivative, but intentional. As if it was commenting on the way that AMeican ideals will ruin the world. Their security measures were pitifully inadequate and the heroic ideals of its people led to absolute destruction. Anyway, as I said much higher up, stylistically the film was very similar to the original. The use of sound was extraordinary. The theme song would slowly rise, drowning out the local sound, and then the local sound would smash back in. It was very well done. Anyway that was most of my thoughts. I don't much feel like reading this long post, so I will assume that I was coherent and said what I meant to with proper sentences and the like. Maybe I will read it over and edit it later on. I give 28 Weeks Later a 6/10. It might be able to pull itslef to a 7 if I decide that the film was a comment upon American ideologies and not merely an Americanized perversion of a great film. Either way, though a mediocre film, it was a further chapter in the best modern horror franchise.
I look at tis film much as I look at Planet of the Apes 3, 4, and 5. Regardless of their dimished quality, it just seems natural that they would be made. Their is a tradition in /horror franchises to make sequels which are merely a bastardized version of the roiginal film, and accomplish nothing on their own. Few franchises escape from this trap. The reason for bringing up the Planet of the Apes is that the sequels were not very good, but I do have a great deal of respect for them because they expanded upon the original. Rather than mimicking it, they worked in concert to create a larger and more in depth world. 28 Weeks Later did the same thing. It had a stylistic basis in the original, but the content was looking at everyting which was ignored by the original. Days created an interestig ensemble cast and asked what happens to law, order, the family unit - essentially, what happens to the social constructs of humanity at the end of the world? Days made a stylistic choice to focus exclusvely on the individuals, and ot the masses. That was all viewed as self explanatory, panic chaos, disbelief, etc. It was ugly, and people died in genocidal quantities. Days chose to show this only in the acting of the survivors, as the reflection of the horror upon their psyches. Weeks went simultaneously forward and backward. It went forward in time, but retreated to within a stable human society, thus showiing us what we could only hear about the first time through. Whether this was a wise decision of not, it works in tandem with the original enough that it does garner my respect. Anyway, with that said, everything they changed in this film was for the worse. It felt like watching the original story as reinterpreted by American sociiety. Every change they made reminded me of some American precedent. There was a scene in which a helicopter pilot tilted his helicopter forward and flew into a crowd of zombies. This was straight out of Grindhouse. Thats not to say that Weeks ripped off Grindhouse, but it was effective in Planet Terror because it was hilariously stupid and over the top. It was the obligatory CGI action shot which defied all laws of reality and plausibility. To see this parody used in serious context was just disturbing. EDIT: I am well aware that both were probably intended as homages to Dawn of the Dead, but they each took it a step further delving into the world of stupid CGI action scenes.
The military seemed straight out of Half Life, to me. They are inadvertantly working in tandem with the monsters in their systematic, facelss destruction. In related videogame-ness, the zombies were here manifest in one man who had vestiges of intelligence. He was the recurring superzobie like Nemesis in Resident Evil: Nemesis. Romero reinvented zombies to be more of a force of nature than an arcane monster. Since Nihgt of the Living Dead, almost every zombie story has focused on the idea of survival and only survival. Here they - sort of - ruined this by suggesting that their may be a cure. The film became, not about orinary people survivng, but about great noble ambitions of saving the world. Luckily this was offset by the ending which, though not explicitly stated, seemed to imply that the boy was not a cure, but did become a zombie and infect the mainland. I really did like this ending, since it made the Americanization of the film seem, not derivative, but intentional. As if it was commenting on the way that AMeican ideals will ruin the world. Their security measures were pitifully inadequate and the heroic ideals of its people led to absolute destruction. Anyway, as I said much higher up, stylistically the film was very similar to the original. The use of sound was extraordinary. The theme song would slowly rise, drowning out the local sound, and then the local sound would smash back in. It was very well done. Anyway that was most of my thoughts. I don't much feel like reading this long post, so I will assume that I was coherent and said what I meant to with proper sentences and the like. Maybe I will read it over and edit it later on. I give 28 Weeks Later a 6/10. It might be able to pull itslef to a 7 if I decide that the film was a comment upon American ideologies and not merely an Americanized perversion of a great film. Either way, though a mediocre film, it was a further chapter in the best modern horror franchise.