28 Days Later Review

It indeed seems at times we live in the most cynical of ages. We often look upon the human race as a walking, talking, autonomous, machine that is without mercy, compassion, or proactive though. A machine that marches through this world, hurting itself, killing itself, and committing crimes against itself and the entirety of the planet. It is often remarked upon that we are one of the only, if not the only, species on our planet that kills out of pure emotional impulse. "28 Days Later" gives us an unrelenting, and somewhat cynical look at the most dangerous of human emotions; rage.

"28 Days Later" opens to a experimental chimp laboratory in Cambridge. We then see angry animal rights activists sneakily break their way into the laboratory. They then find hysterical chimps running back and forth in confined, Plexiglas cages. As they set to freeing the animals an unknowing scientist walks in and catches them in the act. "No! Please stop." he pleads "The chimps are infected!" "With what?" the activists demand "Pure, rage." he answers. Dismissing the scientist's warning they set a chimp free, immediately it attacks and infects both the activists and the scientist. The film then cuts to a man laying in a hospital bed, twenty eight days after the initial infection.

Jim is the name of the man in the hospital bed. Twenty eight days earlier he had been in a bicycle accident that ironically saved his life. Unwittingly he wonders the streets of a now deserted London shouting hello. There is a very despairing and intense scene in which he enters an abandoned church, it is here that he has his first encounter with what the survivors call "the infected." Quickly realizing that these are no normal human beings, Jim runs for his life. It is by shear luck that he comes across some properly prepared survivors. Taking him to their small refuge in the London underground they explain to him the current state of England.

"28 Days Later" makes many a wise choice when it comes to presenting its story. As I stated in my review of "Zombieland" it's extremely hard to make even a mildly compelling zombie movie. This is due simply to the fact this genre has been tread over more times than the Hollywood walk of fame. There is barely an original bone in the genre's body but somehow "28 Days Later" makes it seem like something completely fresh. For an example, most zombie movies the infection, curse, ect. Takes anywhere between a few days to a few weeks to take full effect. The disease in "28 Days Later" however, takes a maximum of twenty seconds to take full effect. This makes for a harsh, brutal, killing of any infected character and no stereotyped hiding that one is infected.

The second wise choice it makes is the design of its characters. Instead of having an array of characters pick off as it slowly advances it gives us a small group of four, making each death unwanted, and emotionally wrenching, and I mean that in a good way. In addition to this, some of the characters are very cynical of their situation. Take the female side-protagonist Selena for an example. She is, smart, hard headed, and a realist. She gives no chances for anyone lagging behind and often remarks that "living is as good as it gets." However, there is optimistic contrast to her bleak personality.

With a hard hitting beginning we expect to film to run downhill as soon as it gets far enough to have a contrived romance between Jim and Selena, and thank goodness "28 Days Later" isn't that stupid. Throughout the entire film Selena's relationship with Jim remains positively platonic, less can be said about Jim though. However, he rarely ever manifests his feelings, which is a good thing.

If there is a single major criticism I have for Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" it would be this. The very ending felt contrived. There is a archetype of optimism being shattered by harsh reality, but the end seems to contradict to whole narrative the film had been so carefully crafting. Disappointed with the natural ending I watched the alternate and found myself a world more satisfied. However, I was still able to remind myself that in the other ending, everyone was happy and fine and therefor it just felt like a bleak "what if" instead of a harsh reality.