MPAA Rated – R
It’s 1:48 Long
A Review by:
– The Dude on the Right
| 28 Days Later Movie Stats & Links |
|
| Starring: | Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns |
| MPAA Rated: | R |
| Released By: | Fox Searchlight |
| Kiddie Movie: | Nope. |
| Date Movie: | She might get frightnened and snuggle. |
| Gratuitous Sex: | Some army dudes are lonely. |
| Gratuitous Violence: | Lots of blood and gore. |
| Action: | Zombies chasing humans. |
| Laughs: | There is a chuckle or two. |
| Memorable Scene: | Nothing totally stands out. |
| Memorable Quote: | Nah. |
| Directed By: | Danny Boyle |
| Produced By: | Andrew Macdonald |
Some people were touting “28 Days Later” as the scariest horror movie of all time, or at least at a really scary movie. Well, I don’t know about either of those claims, but it was a really creepy movie that would have been better had they asked Roger Ebert how they should end it.
Anyway, the movie goes like this. Some no good animal activists think it would be a good idea to free some monkeys from a test facility. What they don’t know is that these monkeys are infected with some kind of virus called “rage.” Pretty much if you transmit some bodily fluid, you become a ravenous zombie attacking all of those around you. We break to the next scene where our main dude, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed only to find the place ransacked and no one around. Alright, that’s not too bizarre, but now he’s walking the streets of London only no one is there. He goes to a church, it’s starting to be nighttime, and in the church he encounters his first zombies. Running for his life, he gets rescued by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley). They explain to him what the deal is, of course he doesn’t believe them, so they make their way to his old homestead where he finds his parents dead, killing themselves instead of becoming rage victims. Another attack ensues, our heroes are on the run, less one member, (It’s explained that if your friend gets infected there’s no helping them, so pretty much you have to kill them on the spot or risk getting “rage” yourself), and it’s now a search if anyone is still normal.
Our heroes find a father and daughter, Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns), holed up in a high rise apartment, and find that Frank has a little portable radio that has picked up a broadcast stating there is a safe place run by the military. It’s now a road trip, and eventually they find the outpost, and even though it’s true they have a secure outpost, things aren’t so secure for our heroes.
But it is there where an interesting plot twist is revealed, that possibly the island of Great Britain has actually been quarantined, that “rage” hasn’t spread across the world, and that they are just waiting for all of the zombies to die from starvation. Low and behold, that seems to be the case since Jim looks up and sees an airplane flying overhead. Now I know I’m giving some things away, but it sets up why Ebert had a better ending than the happy go lucky ending I got. The ending originally in theaters (there is a second ending now attached to the movie after the credits end, a less happy ending, but not as creative as Ebert’s) has Jim, Selena and Hannah in a house on a hillside putting together a lot of fabric spelling out the word “Hello” so the military planes that occasionally fly over would see them. The plane does see them, and it ends at that. Ebert proposes that the jet circles around and blast our heroes to bits. I thought that would have been great, after all, how can you be so sure the infected zombies didn’t learn how to spell?
In the end “28 Days Later” is a great, spooky movie that doesn’t give you the payoff of really being shocked. You’re at a scary movie to begin with, why does the ending have to be happy? Screw the focus groups, blow them to bits! It’s 3 1/2 stars our of 5.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!