Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Catherine McCormack, Idris Elba, Philip Scott, Amanda Walker, Harold Perrineau Jr.

- Reviewed by Linda

It is six months after the Rage virus anihilated Britain in 28 Days Later. As the infected eventually starved to death, the occupying U.S. Army has declared that exiled people can now start coming back into the country. A heavily guarded "Green Zone" has been set up in the middle of London to quarantine the 15,000 survivors as well as new arrivals.

It is here that Don (Robert Carlyle), a survivor, gets reunited with his kids teenage Tammy (Imogen Poots) and ten-ish Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) who were out of the country during the virus. Poor Don has to explain to his kids that in the opening scene of the movie he was with a small group of survivors out in the countryside when the zombies got to them. He had to leave their mum (Catherine McCormack) behind to get chewed to pieces. This opening sequence is great, by the way, and the terror is amplified not by the fact that the zombies spew blood from their mouths and want to rip you to shreds, or by the fact that the camera shakes all over (also making you want to puke), but by the fact that the zombies can RUN! None of this dragging-one-leg and stiff-arm nonsense. These diseased people are PISSED and they will GET YOU.

Anyways, the kids are obviously upset, and Dad is secretly ashamed because he survived rather than trying to save their Mum. There are a few quality family-bonding moments like where they get to jump up and down on the beds in the fabulously nice downtown condo they now get to occupy in the Green Zone, but of course that peace doesn't last... we have a horror movie to get started!

And once 28 Weeks Later gets going, it is absolutely relentless. The Rage virus gets released again to unsurprisingly disasterous results. Imagine 15,000 men, women, and children trapped in a quarantined area, and suddenly enraged zombies start multiplying in that area, mowing through the crowd with the momentum of toppling dominoes. Yep. Now throw in U.S. soldiers perched atop buildings who are instructed to kill said zombies. But the virus moves so fast...

There were a few times that I held my hand up arms-length to try to shield myself from the screen, like blocking the sun from my eyes. There is very little humor this time around, though the moment the virus is actually let loose caused the audience to giggle and groan. The camera shakes all over, supposedly to add to the intensity of the moment, but often causing the ubiquitous motion-sickness of this style.

But this time around I felt the characters were too generic. An American soldier (Jeremy Renner) that ends up helping the kids is never developed, and neither is a British doctor (Rose Byrne) who becomes a major character. The story becomes typical: The less-attractive people predictably get picked off, and to be honest you are never too worried about the kids. Fine actors like Carlyle, McCormick, and Harold Perrineau Jr. (as an American helicopter pilot) do the best they can with the material, but don't get much to do to show off their acting chops.

However, this movie IS inarguably intense and soars best with its haunting imagery. Sure it is a cheap shot, you may say, to show famous landmarks going all to hell on a big screen, but the image of a deserted London with nary a soul to see is truly creepy. The characters of London and the British countryside prove to be more interesting than any of the humans (or former-humans) in the film.

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