28 Days Later

Mr. Boyle’s low budget zombie movie was the “surprise hit” of the summer according to various shitty entertainment magazines that I keep forgetting not to read. I thought it was pretty decent but it does not add anything significant to the zombie genre. Most of this material was already covered more thoughtfully and with better visuals in Mr. Romero’s classic series of films. Kids, if you have not seen them, stop doing your fucking homework and go rent NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD, in that order. These are three great pictures that each make a statement about the time they were made in. Believe me your life will be improved by watching these movies.

28 DAYS LATER, at least on my one viewing, doesn’t seem to say much about our times. But it does repeat several ideas from Romero: a disparate group of survivors looking for a safe haven, a fun looting spree, a semi-domesticated zombie chained by the neck who later gets set loose as a weapon, a military base where the soldiers turn out to be a bunch of goons, a scene where they stop to get gas and one character wanders off and gets attacked by zombie kids and has to kill them. Yes, the zombies are faster than in Romero’s pictures, but we’ve also seen that in the great Return of the Living Dead.

I liked 28 DAYS LATER better near the end where it started to add more non-Living-Dead-retread twists. The idea of the soldiers using the continuation of the species as an excuse for rape. And of course the guy poking out eyes with his bare hands and then embracing his lover without even wiping off. Charming. I also enjoyed the loving relationship between the father and daughter.

I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s well made and I thought it was worth seeing. I’m just saying that shooting it on digital video instead of making it look really good doesn’t constitute reinventing zombie horror.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN in CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

The big surprise for me this summer was this movie based on the great Disneyland ride. I mean it’s a fuckin pirate movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Based on a ride. Sure, Johnny Depp has a good track record but he also has a couple thankless roles in his past like the hunky gypsy guitarist in Chocolat, which is how I pictured this one.

The script is by the same fellas who wrote THE MASK OF ZORRO and it’s a similar type of old fashioned action adventure swashbuckling type deal, except with the clever added bonus of living skeletons and a monkey. The plot involves pirates cursed by Aztec gold they stole so that they turn to skeletons in the moonlight and cannot enjoy any of their plundering and/or pillaging. So instead of being about pirates searching for treasure, it’s about them trying to bring it all back to end the curse. Usually in a pirate movie you get the scene where they find all the treasure and scoop it up. Here it’s the opposite where they joyfully dump all the treasure back out.

So it’s a good story but nobody fucking cares, because right in the middle of it is Johnny Depp in a classic (won’t get the oscar it deserves) comedic performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, a character he describes as “a cross between Keith Richards and Pepe Lepew”. As soon as he makes his entrance, casually sashaying off of a sinking boat onto a dock, you know you are gonna love this movie. It’s great to see such a weirdo as the lead in a big budget adventure movie, even if they hedge their bets and include that elf Orlando Bloom as a more traditional, bland hunky character who grows in his Errol Flynn goatee over the movie to show how cool pirates are. The best pirates though are the less debonair ones. Most of the bad guys (including Geoffrey Rush) look like a little more grotesque version of the rubber cartoon characters from the ride. This may be the most rotten teeth seen in any one movie.

My only real complaint is the music. Apparently Bruckheimer decided the music “wasn’t piratey enough” so he hired Hans Zimmer to replace a bunch of the music. But instead of making it piratey I think he just took a couple tracks off the cd for THE ROCK and cut them into the action scenes. Oh well, I’ll live.

This is Johnny Depp’s movie for sure but I would also like to thank director Gore Verbinski. After this and the surprisingly good remake of THE RING I think it’s safe to say he knows what he’s doing. Maybe they should just keep hiring him for things that just seem like they could never work. Like a sequel to this movie.

[ratings]

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Tags: Cillian Murphy, Danny Boyle, Naomie Harris

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2005 at 4:40 am and is filed under Horror, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

18 Responses to “28 Days Later”

FTopel
August 14th, 2010 at 11:21 pm

I never bought that digital video crap. They said shooting on digital video made it look more realistic. Well, my real vision doesn’t look like blurry VHS. I like Danny Boyle, I like zombie survival movies, but I’ve tried to watch this again and I still can’t.
Mac
October 15th, 2010 at 12:42 pm

This movie does the one thing that Geroge Romero never did. It explains in depth why and how the infection started. That makes a big difference for me. The zombies are faster but I am annoyed that it never explained why the infected can’t walk in day light and why the Zombies didn’t travel through the Channel Tunnel and infect Europe. It was serious and more entertaining then most zombie movies and the zombies did seem sincerely threatening.
Outlaw Vern
October 15th, 2010 at 1:23 pm

But it’s no accident that Romero never did that. The lack of an explanation for the zombie plauge is one of the keys to the success of those movies. It’s so much more believable and so much scarier to have no idea where it came from. In NIGHT they come up with theories, but I don’t think you’re supposed to believe they’re necessarily true. In both DAWN and DAY you begin and end in a world of chaos, the status quo is never returned. That’s one reason why they stand so far above of more typical Hollywood “bad thing happens, heroes save the day” horror movies. They’re just truer.

For all the “realistic” camerawork of the 28 TIME UNITS movies I don’t think they feel as true to life as I know it as the Romeros do. I mean they’re pretty good movies, but that’s one of their weaknesses is we are so compelled to compare them to the movies that obviously inspired them.
The original Paul
October 15th, 2010 at 2:42 pm

Vern – that’s an interesting point. Once again I’m reminded of the movie-justice argument (damn if I shouldn’t just write a freaking book on that subject given how much I’ve posted about it recently) which says that the best ending isn’t always the most “convenient” one. But “true to life” states it better than I have, I think.

I guess it comes down to the tone of the movie though. I could happily accept the ending of “The Running Man” because it was a delight of eighties cheese and beefcake. (Damn, now I’m hungry as well.) Whereas I couldn’t accept the same ending in “Battle Royale”, even though I loved ninety percent of that film.

I don’t know if I agree with you about 28 Days Later being less “true to life” though, and the thing that saves it for me is the Brendan Gleeson character. For me, the relationship between him and his daughter is the “heart” of the movie for me. Once he dies (in the most infuriatingly stupid pointless way possible) and the squaddies come into the picture, it just loses it. It reminded me of just how good “Dawn of the Dead” is (which is a little ironic since the squaddie bit seems to deliberately take many of its cues from the final raider battle in “Dawn of the Dead” – the absolute worst part of the movie, if any part of that great movie could be described as the “worst”!)
Jones
October 15th, 2010 at 7:07 pm

28 Days Later is a great, great movie. And I loved the ending in that it was different from almost every horror movie. It had an actual ending, not a final jump of a zombie coming out, or a shot of some eggs, or whatever. A real ending. And no one makes horror with real endings anymore…sad or happy. It always has to end with a dipshit tag on the end. So while Vern is right in his assesment of movies in general, in horror it’s never that way.

I imagine Mac really likes those movies where the characters stand around and give you lots of unnecessary information about things, slowly and in detail. Like automobile repair DVDs and stereo instructions read on tape.
odo19
October 15th, 2010 at 9:04 pm

I actually love the camera work in this movie. Boyle could have taken his 10 million dollar budget and tried to shoot it on film and make it look as professional as he could but you know what?? Then it would have looked just like any other DTV horror garbage. By making it look ultra cheap the movie actually looks very unique. I mentioned El Mariachi like 2 minutes ago in another review and I think that one is another example of a movies cheapness lending it character and mood that it wouldn’t otherwise have.

Oh and Vern the movie was shot during 9/11 but released afterwards.
CJ Holden
October 16th, 2010 at 4:41 am

I remember Danny Boyle defending the camerawork and his use of Mini DV with: “Who wants to see the end of the world in bright and clear colours?”
The original Paul
October 16th, 2010 at 12:47 pm

Jones, to me it was almost exactly the opposite. I loved most of the movie up until Brendan’s death, but hated the rest of it – and I do mean HATED. I don’t know why the part after they leave the city was necessary, actually. It’s almost as though they had decided that they couldn’t just leave it at the horses, so they had to throw in a horrible “downer” ending, kill off the most likeable character, and demonstrate how HUMANITY IS THE REAL EVIL (I could have written the whole thing in six foot high letters if the formatting had let me, but you get the picture.)

Sorry, but isn’t that pretty much the point of every movie Romero has ever done? At least the ones that I’ve seen… And I think it’s safe to say “Night of the Living Dead” and its ilk did it a helluva lot more effectively than “28 Days Later”.
Jones
October 16th, 2010 at 12:52 pm

I agree with odo19.

28 Days Later didn’t have a downer ending, that’s what most horror nerds hate about it. It’s a downer to you because they killed the character you liked. But overall, the good people survive and triumph. I don’t think Romero necessarily did it more effectively…sometimes he did. And sometimes we had hammy characters screaming at each other like Day of the Dead. Although in all of his zombie movies except the first, he always ended them on a hopeful note. And Day of the Dead is downright happy, you figured they got away from the zombies and are safe.
The original Paul
October 16th, 2010 at 4:08 pm

Jones – Ok, fair point. Take out the “downer ending” point then, because I agree, it’s fairly subjective to me. I can see why you’d disagree with that.

It’s weird, because I’ve criticized so many movies for “playing it safe” and going for the obvious / convenient ending (even if it doesn’t necessarily fit the tone of the movie). And here I’m criticizing 28 Days Later for the exact OPPOSITE thing – you’d never predict what happens in the last third of the movie from the earlier part of it.

The trouble is, though, that not being able to predict it doesn’t mean it works. (Another point is that I think you WOULD see that ending coming if you’d seen enough Romero movies before you saw “28 Days Later”, but I’m not going to criticise it for being unoriginal.)

I do think, though, that this movie is two separate stories. The first one is a survival story set in a zombie apocalypse. The second one… well to be honest I don’t have a clue how to characterise it, which isn’t why I don’t like it. The problem is that I don’t think it’s done well, whatever it is.

It loses me because I don’t understand the characters’ motivations – on either side of the conflict that develops. Are the soldiers mad? Rapists? Monsters? Did they start out wanting to genuinely help people but then decide to use them? They’re clearly not normal, as shown by their attitude to the zombies, but what ARE they? I have no idea. I can deal with stuff like this being left ambiguous, but that’s not the case here – it’s like the filmmakers didn’t have a clear idea themselves.

Worse still, I lose the protagonists. Throughout the whole film we’ve seen events through their eyes, but I have no idea how they regard the soldiers. Ok, it’s plain enough at the end when Cillian Murphy attacks the soldiers, but what was he thinking before then? Did he ever consider throwing in with them, before he knew just how psychotic they were? Did the women? What do they feel about the situation they’re in? I have no idea. We learn a little from some whispered conversations, but that’s pretty much it. There’s very little character work, either overt or unspoken, and when there is the protagonists’ characters don’t seem to gel with the start of the film either. Naomie Harris’ and Megan Burns’ characters in particular. Since when was Selena that subdued? It’s more than just the soldiers’ influence, it’s as though she’s had a personality transplant or something.

Soundtrack’s fantastic though. “In the house”. It worked so well, they used it four times in the sequel – thereby robbing it of all impact. (Actually, that pretty much describes “28 weeks later” in its entirety.)
dieselboy
October 16th, 2010 at 7:35 pm

“It loses me because I don’t understand the characters’ motivations – on either side of the conflict that develops. Are the soldiers mad? Rapists? Monsters? Did they start out wanting to genuinely help people but then decide to use them? They’re clearly not normal, as shown by their attitude to the zombies, but what ARE they? I have no idea. I can deal with stuff like this being left ambiguous, but that’s not the case here – it’s like the filmmakers didn’t have a clear idea themselves.”

Their motivations were to get laid because they are in a zombie apocalypse and women are scarce. They probably started out wanting to genuinely help people but as time wore on people got more desperate and lost their civility. You ask what ARE they? Well, they’re soldiers right? Whats so ambiguous? It really seems like you’re grasping at straws with your critique here. I understand not liking a movie for whatever reason, but I’m not sure your example here makes much sense, to me anyway.
FTopel
October 16th, 2010 at 7:49 pm

I thought it was interesting that to some extent, the soldiers had a point. It is the responsibility of the last women alive to repopulate humanity. But dude, too soon. It’s only been a month. Let them get used to it and come to that conclusion on their own. And let the little girl grow up at least.

But I don’t think the soldiers were ever portrayed as having a philosophical anthropological perspective. They were just bad guys who wanted to do stuff that was not good for the heroes. And I REALLY hate looking at that digital video.

But Vern, 28 Weeks was shot on film. It was shaky cam style but at least it looked like a movie. And at least I wanted to see how Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner escaped the city during containment protocol.

I’m with you on not explaining though. Storytellers lose perspective on what’s important when they try to come up with an explanation. The point is what the event does to people. Who cares what caused it? Do we need to know how Face/Off transplants are possible? Do we need to know how a flux capacitor works? Do we need to know why Groundhog Day repeats? Hell no!
Griff
October 16th, 2010 at 11:25 pm

regardless of whether you like 28 Days Later, you have to respect it for two reasons

1. it totally revitalized the zombie genre, which at the time was a pretty dead genre (no pun intended), off the top of my head I can think of only a single zombie movie from the 90’s, the Night of The Living Dead remake, which was 1990, without 28 Days Later, there never would have been more Romero zombie movies

2. not only did it revitalize the genre, but it came up with a totally unique and clever spin on it that it makes it creepily believable, they make not technically be zombies, but what’s more plausible? “living dead” zombies or a virus that sucks all the serotonin out of your brain and makes you go ape shit? that’s not too far removed from rabies

personally, I’ve always liked 28 Days Later, it helped me become the huge zombie fan I am today, re watching it a few years ago on blu ray the “digital camera look” did bother me a bit, but it wasn’t a deal breaker
Griff
October 17th, 2010 at 1:08 am

ok well to be fair Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive also came out in the 90’s

but then there’s also Nudist Colony of the Dead, which came out in the 90’s, I rest my case
Griff
October 17th, 2010 at 1:15 am

oh yeah and Cemetery Man

but that’s about it for the good ones, I swear
neal2zod
October 17th, 2010 at 5:50 am

Griff – it may not be “good” in everyone’s eyes, and there’s a bunch more shit running around besides zombies, but I think Resident Evil 1 counts as a zombie movie, and I think it came out a little before 28 Days Later. And even though I actually liked RE1, I did think the whole “character gets infected but tries to hide it from the other characters and slowly turns” thing that we’ve seen in almost every zombie, virus, and vampire movie, was tedious and played out by that point. I didn’t like the last 1/3 of 28 Days Later either, but I thought the way they neatly disposed of that cliche by making the turning time 5 seconds or whatever was pretty genius.
The original Paul
October 17th, 2010 at 6:59 am

Griff – I definitely agree with you on the effect “28 Days Later” had. I don’t think it was just zombie movies that it revitalised either. Horror in general hadn’t been getting big audiences, at least for some time, before that film came out.

FTopel – 28 Weeks’ shakycam ruined it for me. Although unlike “The Bourne Supremacy”, which I also find unwatchable at points, I didn’t think there was much else worth watching either. The kids weren’t particularly good, Robert Carlyle was utterly wasted, and every good idea it had went nowhere. (I’m with Vern on one thing – telling the story of the man who deserted his family and ran away to save himself could’ve been interesting – unfortunately they don’t do it.)

But specifically 28 Weeks’ trying to show what Mark describes in the first film in the railway station, and getting it SO wrong, just lost it for me. This one scene should’ve been fantastic – the infected chasing the people into an underground car park, people packed in, running for their lives, and then the virus starts spreading… don’t ask me how the fuck you screw that up, but they managed it. I literally could not tell what the fuck was going on. (And yes, I know that the point is that it’s supposed to immerse us in utter chaos that we were supposed to emphathise with the confusion of the characters in the film, but surely there’s a way to film it and keep that immersion value without leaving the audience completely baffled.)

I will elaborate on the point I made earlier though. You guys all know I’m a soundtrack nerd above all else. “28 Weeks” used a LOT of cues from “28 Days”, which is understandable – look at the James Bond films, they often used the same musical cues for five or six films in a row -but the problem is that it used them in completely the wrong way. “In the Dark” especially comes to mind – that guitar chord sequence doesn’t sound half as awe-inspiring when it’s repeated four times throughout a movie, by the second or third time it just sounds overblown and rather silly. But there are others. The point is that I think “28 Weeks” was trying to copy “28 Days” without really realising why so much of it worked as well as it did.

Dieselboy – You tell me that, but I don’t see it. (”Show it, don’t explain it.”) I can handle the soldiers being enigmas though – I’m more concerned with the protagonists. The problem is I stopped CARING what happened to them. Once that happens, the film’s sunk.
Jones
October 17th, 2010 at 9:32 am

Ai gree totally about 28 Weeks. Weird that a lot of horror nerds seem to like that one better, but I think it’s because it had more mayhem. But yeah, they had an interesting story at the core…and did NOTHING with it. And I agree about the epic sequence that should have been amazing, but instead they just filmed it all in close-ups. Bullshit, horrible, terrible lame cash-in movie. They could have had a classic.