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Movie: 28 Days Later Director: Danny Boyle Actors: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Brendan Gleeson |
I've been looking forward to this film not because of director Danny Boyle (I've never seen Trainspotting and I didn't like The Beach) but I liked the plot outline of the story. I thought the movie would be a nice cool art house-zombie-kinda flick. Well, I didn't get what I expected...but first:
The Story in a nutshell:
A virus has been unleashed on mankind. When infected you'll change into a creature full of rage within 20 seconds. The movie opens with a great introduction on how the virus, carried by monkeys (no it's not Outbreak), makes the jump to humans. 28 days later, London and other cities around the world are taken over by the virus, billions of casualties but also some survivors trying not to run into the zombie-like creatures.
Come to think of it, this could be a nice cool story for Blade III (or IV). The story revolves around Jim (Cillian Murphy) who wakes up in an abandoned hospital 28 days later. Jim wanders around the empty streets of London that looks like it's being destroyed by a hooligan war. He doesn't have a clue what happened until he bumps into a bunch of infected humans. Well, sounds awesome, right? It is, the beginning of the movie is absolutely great but after that things get really…boring. The action packed zombie movie that was promised watching the trailer (the trailer I saw here in Holland) turned out to be a movie leaning more towards the drama. Well, that's also a good thing but a few great emotional scenes and a few not so great action sequences are interrupted by some long dragging empty moments.
Don't get me wrong, the story has some really interesting plot twists and a few surprises but Danny Boyle just doesn't take advantage of what the script offers. Boyle did deliver some nice visuals accompanied by John Murphy's chilling movie score. The amazing shots of the abandoned streets reminded me of the scene in Vanilla Sky where Tom Cruise is the only person walking on Time Square but 28 Days Later pushed the idea a bit further with a completely deserted London. That makes it more frustrating cause this movie could be a creepy different kind of horror film including great actors and some nice unexpected twists. It has been almost 28 days since I saw the movie and it still pisses me off...
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Written by Reggy 05/06/03
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