(Review originally written at 12 May 2008)

Zombie movies always have been around, from as early on as the 30's. In 1968 George A. Romero changed the genre for ever with "Night of the Living Dead" and he perfected the genre with his movie "Dawn of the Dead" from 1978. From that moment on, lots and lots of film-makers tried to have a go at the genre, with often some bad formulaic B-horror movies as an end result. "28 Weeks Later" and the previous movie "28 Days Later..." are basically the first, non George A. Romero involved zombie-flicks, made in the same horror style as those earlier mentioned Romero movies.

"28 Weeks Later" chooses a realistic approach, so don't expect a movie with heroic character, blowing zombie's heads off. The movie is possibly even better as a study of human behavior instead.

It's realism is being strengthened by its visual look. The camera-work puts you right into the middle of things and the movie never exaggerated with its action of gore.

This doesn't mean that "28 Weeks Later" isn't a gory movie to watch though. As far as zombie movies go, this is actually one very gory movie to watch, with lots of blood and guts and body pieces flying around, so you have been warned.

It's a direct sequel to "28 Days Later..." but its also a sequel that is using different characters and story lines. Therefor this movie remains perfectly good to watch even for those that have never seen "28 Days Later...". Not only the actors are different but there also is a different director at the helm this time. Danny Boyle passed on the honers to Spanish film-maker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Danny Boyle still remained closely involved though and his hand is still clearly visible throughout the movie. He even directed some of the second unit work for the movie.

Danny Boyle's influence is also notable in the movie its cast. Robert Carlyle already almost got a role in "28 Days Later..." and Rose Byrne had already appeared in the Boyle movie "Sunshine". The rest of the cast mostly exists out of unknown actors, which again, adds to the total realism of the movie.

A zombie movie that has it all; gore, realism, action and horror.

8/10

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(Review originally written at 1 August 2006)

Yeah sure, the movie its visuals already did looked horrible and not very promising but the premise and the cast looked good, so I still sort of expected to be entertained by this movie. This however unfortunately wasn't the case. The premise is good but the story is filled with improbabilities and is logically flawed.

This movie is potential flushed down the toilet. The main plot is interesting and somewhat original. It's good enough to make a good adventurous movie out of would you think. This movie however fails to entertain and I think that that is this movie biggest flaw. Perhaps it takes itself too serious and a little bit more humor certainly wouldn't had done the movie any harm. Instead it now is nothing more than a lame and cheap looking movie, filled with the one unlikely event after the other, that also steals a bit too much from other, more successful movies. Mainely "Jurassic Park" obviously.

The characters also don't help to make the movie any more compelling or at least interesting to watch. I still think that Edward Burns did a fairly decent job as the 'heroic' main lead. The rest of the characters however really get muddled in into the movie and they get very little interesting to do. The movie rather relies on its visual, which are extremely poor. Catherine McCormack also plays a very irritating character. Basically all her character does is complain and talk about how right she was and the rest oh so wrong. Her character just isn't a likable one. And the rest of the characters...well I already have forgotten their names, I think that that is saying enough about them. It certainly is true though that Ben Kingsley's performance alone makes this movie worth watching. He is really excellent in his sort of villainous businessman role but from the moment when he disappears out of the movie the movie really goes downhill rapidly.

Visually the movie is extremely poor. It has some dreadful looking CGI effects and they couldn't even get the more simple 'blue-screen' effects look convincing in the movie. The sets are also awful and cheap looking, like they can fall over and break down every moment.

The movie never gets tense, exciting or adventurous since the story is brought in the least interesting and engaging way possible. It's a very distant movie with distant characters that fails to impress. There are plenty of action sequences but all of them are so ridicules looking and far from believable that they never get tense or good enough.

So basically this movie is lacking in everything that is needed to make a genre movie like this one a good and successful one. It's sad to see how low director Peter Hyams has sunk to the last couple of years, after making some good movies in the '70's and '80's.

4/10

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