28 Weeks Later.

28 Weeks Later is "a worthy successor to 28 Days Later," writes Mark Kermode in the Observer. That established, a couple of points: "At several moments, the film knowingly evokes the ongoing battles of Iraq, with the peacekeeping forces turning out to be every bit as dangerous and destructive as the insurgent infection they are struggling to contain." And "there is something particularly resonant about such nightmarish phantasms when placed within uncomfortably familiar British sites, a juxtaposition which has long been exploited by purveyors of the uncanny."

Also, Pete Cashmore elaborates on seven lessons the film teaches us, for example, "Always stay close to a helicopter pilot." And Holly Grigg-Spall discovers that director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has a lot on his mind.

Updated through 5/14.

"Is the movie a classic?" wonders David Edelstein in New York. "I don't think so, but it's terrifying - and a necessary gross-out. Fresnadillo and co-screenwriters Rowan Joffe, EL Lavigne and Jesús Olmo certainly rub our noses in the gory mess of reconstruction under a desperate occupying force: With his whiplash subjective camera, Fresnadillo rouses our fight-or-flight instincts and makes us loathe the brutality. All I could think was, What has our government wrought?"

Kevin Maher talks with Robert Carlyle for the London Times.

John Patterson in the Guardian: "From now on, every movie ought to feature its own '28 Weeks Later...' - a coda in which the destinies of the major characters are outlined in the grimmest possible terms, so we can drain off the saccharine content of the studio-approved finale that just made us puke into our cupped hands."

Earlier: Background pieces from Chuck Culpepper in the Los Angeles Times and Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard.

Updates, 5/8: "28 Weeks Later is a rarity: a worthwhile sequel," writes Todd at Twitch. "It expands the premise of the first while remaing true to it, pushing things to their logical conclusions rather than simply repeating itself or reinventing - and thus disrespecting - what came before. The technical side is very strong, the film itself very entertaining. My hunch is that it will not bear up to repeat viewings as well as the first thanks to the lack of focus on the characters and some of the hinted-at plot holes but it is still one of the better action-horror pictures of recent years."

Ray Pride finds it "a grim, sincerely nihilist, urgently political, wholly contemporary parable about life in wartime, more Goya than GOP."

Update, 5/9: Nathan Lee in the Voice: "Four years after 'Mission Accomplished,' 28 Weeks Later reminds us that the mission, whatever the hell it was to begin with, is now officially, apocalyptically fucked." That said, "Where 28 Weeks Later is allegorical, [Zack] Snyder's [Dawn of the Dead] was frightfully symptomatic." That said, Weeks is "superior horror. 28 Months Later can't come too soon."

"Boyle's decision to stay on the sidelines and produce, rather than direct, is a smart move on his part but an unfortunate one for us," warns Jason Bogdaneris in the L Magazine.

"28 Weeks Later rolls in like a poisonous dust cloud of nihilism," writes Jeremiah Kipp at Slant. "28 Days Later was a tough and uncompromising horror film, but it's all sunshine and laughter in comparison to the sequel."

"Fresnadillo cuts to the quick - the primal-terror essence of horror movies as outward expressions of subconscious terrors," writes Armond White in the New York Press, who, of course, has a different reading from anyone else: "The welcome thing about 28 Weeks Later is that it avoids its potentially anti-American, anti-military set-up... Instead, Fresnadillo sticks to universal horror-movie scares: The husband-wife reunion between [Robert] Carlyle and [Catherine] McCormack is full of recognizable spousal anxiety; the children's shock at seeing Dad's true, blood-red nature is almost classical. That's more than Boyle ever achieved."

At Zoom In Online, Annie Frisbie discovers "a horror/action hybrid that is as devastatingly gripping (if not more so) than the original."

Updates, 5/10: "[T]here is a method to the infected madness," notes Susan King in the Los Angeles Times. "All the actions, movements and vicious attitude of the crazed people were carefully choreographed and rehearsed. Paul Kasey, a gymnast, dancer, actor and specialist in creature and monster movement, was brought in to be the movement "advisor" for the gore-infested film."

Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly: "Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, the zombie portion of Grindhouse, may cheerfully ape the cheesiness of 70s horror movies, but its brilliantly honed visual dynamics exhibit a classical cinematic intelligence. 28 Weeks Later, by contrast, reflects the flashy temptations of digital editing and sound effects and a stylistic sense derived from the tropes of top-dollar TV commercials."

Bryant Frazer: "It's punishing and exciting and ferociously intelligent in equal measure. It's the best zombie picture in God knows how long, and the finest English-language horror movie in too many years."

"9/11 imagery in movies hasn't been a real source of frisson for anyone except film critics since Steven Spielberg unleashed his glossy, mainstream-ready version of it in 2005's War of the Worlds," writes Grady Hendrix at Slate. "Images of rabid globalization, however, still deliver a kick, and there's nothing that says 'New World Order' more than a horde of single-minded zombies devouring the quick and assimilating them into their anonymous, ever-expanding ranks. Unfortunately, globalization - the triumph of the blandly international over the quirkily regional - is also what keeps this movie from pop greatness."

Updates, 5/11: "Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and its new sequel, 28 Weeks Later... may not quite be in [George A] Romero's league, but at their best they come close to his signature blend of grisly horror, emotional impact and biting," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. This sequel "is brutal and almost exhaustingly terrifying, as any respectable zombie movie should be. It is also bracingly smart, both in its ideas and in its techniques."

"Laden with references to ongoing large-scale fiascos, 28 Weeks Later is not an account of a disaster so much as it is the grisly anatomy of a quagmire," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "If 28 Weeks Later lacks clarity and momentum, it may be at least partly because the situation it so pointedly reflects lacks it as well. One thing is for sure, Fresnadillo's movie is grimmer and grislier than Boyle's, and it wantonly abandons all hope."

But Peter Bradshaw is let down: "I can only say that after a terrific beginning, the movie's credibility snaps like a frozen twig with one stupid plot-glitch around 30 minutes in and then, despite some spectacular moments, fails to disguise the fact that there isn't much mileage left in all those red-eyed folk running around growling and gibbering and chomping." Also in the Guardian, a zombie quiz; and Mark Lawson notes that the film shows London "as it has never been seen before - by making it a city that has no one left to see it."

"What with Children of Men, and then Sunshine, British sci-fi - and sci-fi set in Britain - is on a roll right now," writes Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph. "Still, it comes as a surprise that 28 Weeks Later... is not just a terrific film, but it betters the original."

On the other hand, Derek Malcolm in the Evening Standard: "Unlike Boyle's film - which skirted closer to science fact than fiction - the contemporary relevance is frittered away and we are left with a kind of pile-driving nullity, empty of any real content."

"In just a little over half a decade, the US military has gone from being the guys who show up at the end of a movie and save the day to being the guys who cock everything up royally," note Nerve's Bilge Ebiri. "It's sure to fuel plenty of tongue-wagging by pundits on TV, but, politically charged or not, the air kind of goes out of 28 Weeks Later once this bloodletting starts."

Anthony Quinn in the Independent: "Be warned: this movie does not want to be your friend.... This film is a super-efficient machine, a thrill-ride to leave an audience definitely shaken, but not stirred."

In the London Times, James Christopher finds it "a blockbuster horror that chimes noisily with local fears: immigration, needy strangers, feral disease and Draconian laws." But: "The dig at trigger-happy American occupiers does nothing to illuminate a drama that we now regard with weary familiarity."

"While Boyle's film was first-rate, Fresnadillo's beats it in some crucial ways," writes Andy Klein in the LA CityBeat.

Via Movie City News, an on-the-set report from Stephanie Bunbury in the Age.

"Fair enough, this summer's follow-up to 28 Days Later may not be as tightly crafted nor quite as thrilling as its predecessor," concedes Aaron Hillis at the Reeler. "But in following George Romero's tradition of marrying zombie horror to socio-political critique, the surprisingly potent 28 Weeks Later bares some sharp teeth, a sharper mind and a grisly, half-chewed middle finger toward the Bush administration's War on Terror."

Next to this movie, the grim Children of Men looks like Pillow Talk," writes Peter Hartlaub in the San Francisco Chronicle. "But the sequel succeeds as both terrifying horror, gore-fest and, at times, serious drama."

Josh Horowitz talks with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo for MTV.

Updates, 5/12: "If it's a recommendation to say that a film makes you alternately anxious and terrified and leaves you feeling exhausted and slightly nauseous, 28 Weeks Later is heartily recommended," writes Karl French in the Financial Times.

"28 Weeks has the problem of growing more formulaic and unsurprising as it goes along, since the only way it can proceed is to continue getting worse and worse, until there's nothing left to do but briefly hint at what the next sequel will be like," writes Phil Nugent. "But for hardcore horror movie lovers, people who enjoy seeing variations on the end of the world and are bored by those that pull their punches, it's well-made and heartless enough to qualify as manna."

Update, 5/13: The Observer's Philip French finds 28 Weeks Later "superior to 28 Days Later.... But the movie is ruthless and not only in the way it spares no one from plague and bullet. The chilling theme is that the road to hell on earth is paved with good intentions, starting with the well-meaning scientists and the animal activists who light the fuse, and continuing with those inspired by compassion and moral decency."

Update, 5/14: "It lacks some of the emotional resonance of the first film, and I'm not entirely sure the soci-political critique works the whole time, but I was entertained for 90 minutes," writes Matt Dentler. "Definitely recommended."

Posted by dwhudson at May 7, 2007 7:20 AM