5 years after the success of Director Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” the opportunity was just too inviting to not smash out a sequel – unfortunately due to other commitments, Boyle was unable to hold his spot in the lead-chair, and passed the torch to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Boyle however stayed on as executive producer, and after a re-write or two, the stage was set for a follow-up piece that would promise as much (if not more) insanity than its predecessor – on the slab for this edition of Retro-View is “28 Weeks Later.”
The 2007 installment takes place 28 weeks after (what a coincidence) the events of the original film, and thanks to a titanic dose of starvation, the infected have been dying off in droves – then enter the military to step up & reinforce perimeters while beginning to reintegrate batches of the populous back into designated safe-zones…now what could POSSIBLY go wrong? Well, it’s not too long after two children get repopulated back into the “watchful” eye of their father (Robert Carlyle as Don) do they decide to sneak out in the hopes of getting back to their old home to reclaim mementos. They then stumble upon their mother (Catherine McCormack as Alice), who was supposedly swept up in a rage-attack by the infected when the original outbreak occurred.
Side note: if you can’t get hyped up for this film after watching the first 11 eye-popping minutes, then you might as well shut the movie off and find yourself a nice cooking or shopping channel to settle in with for the evening – that’s how intently psychotic the framework was for this movie. Kudos to all who were responsible for putting it together – quick bursts of unbalanced mental fragmentation – whip-shot camera work and an absolute sense of desperation & frenzy…the scenes still blow my mind to this day. Okay – back to a small summary: it’s not long before the virus reaches a boiling point and is overtaking the country once again, even laying waste to the military forces designed to defend against it.
Absolutely shuttering performances from Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, Harold Perrineau & Idris Elba all densely fortify the story and its conveyance, and with the accompaniment of nightmarish visuals and a solid soundtrack, the movie accomplished what many thought couldn’t be done – holding up to the original. There has been discussion over the years about a potential third film in the franchise, although with rights-issues, developmental slowdowns and commitments preventing actors from finding their way back to a “28 Months Later”, we’ll all just have to keep our bony fingers crossed that it will see the light of day.
In closing, I’d chuck both of these films in my player quicker than a hiccup if someone who hadn’t seen them expressed an interest – powerful, frightening and ultimately set up in cliffhanger-fashion – the world NEEDS another one of these films to run wild on the masses.
