Movie Details
| Title: | 28 Weeks Later | |
| Director: | Juan Carlos Fresnadillo | |
| Year: | 2007 | |
| Genre: | Virus | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 05.12.07 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 05.12.07 | Alamo Village | This was probably a bad idea but I wanted to see this and Jarrette was going to a midnight show so I sacrificed a few hours sleep to see it before I hear from everyone how good/bad it is. The spoiler-free answer: This movie kind of felt like a viral epidemic to me. At first I was loving it, then one thing happens and I'm like "eh, well I don't get that but it's still a good movie, I can forgive that." Then a few more things happen and I'm like "well.. ok so I have a handful of problems with it... but the rest is really good so it's still mostly good for sure" and by the end I think i'm 50/50 on the liking it/not liking it meter. Like Jarrette said, it was one rewrite away from being a really good movie, even though I think he had different problems with it than I did, well.. some of them. I'm sure we overlapped as well. Spoilers from here on out! I really liked how they pulled a Psycho and had Carlyle get infected. I thought it was handled really well too with the sad music playing over the violence and blood. It was also excitedly unexpected how the main medic girl gets it. But... there's something about the Psycho move that... to me, if you're going to develop a character like he's your main protagonist then you're gonna very suddenly shift the narrative away from him, he can't linger. I hated how they kept him as kind of the everpresent pursuing uber-zombie. He should've died way sooner in some cool but random way. and i know this has been going on long enough to where I'm supposed to be ok with it, but I'd really like there to be a movie made again someday where I can tell what the fuck is going on in the action scenes. I think I first complained about this in Gladiator so that's what, 7 years now of hating modern-day action sequences? gah. It's like every time this movie is supposed to get "crazy" all it means is they start jiggling the camera more and cutting more often. like dudes with bloody eyes biting people and ripping into arteries and shit is too boring to just shoot... you've got to make your audience's subconscious work overtime at piecing the strobe cuts together and thinking about what we might have just seen. It's really frustrating and I hate it and I wish it would stop. But unlike Jarrette, I like the typhoid mary aspect to virus movies. I thought it was kind of writerly with the different eye colors but whatever... I was digging on the whole medical thing and whatnot but then it became a cure thing and that i wasn't so into. the whole save-the-kid thing seems really familiar when they're on the verge of a carrier spreading infection thing. But I guess with that they're limited by the instant craziness of the virus... but whatever. And mental note, when there's a deadly outbreak that you're trying desperately to contain, it might be a good idea to leave the lights on. Sure it makes for a scarier and strobier little scene but come on... in what military rulebook does that little gem reside? Oh shit, some of these people are infected with a virus that has visible symptoms! Quick, huddle them all together and make it totally dark! It's for their safety! The movie has a handful more of those kinds of things that just don't make sense - and really I think a large part of these movies is thinking about the "what if..." aspects of the situation and reacting to realistic ways of dealing with it - but I already feel like I'm picking on it. All the calm parts I really liked. Most of the beginning stuff (i thought the prologue was ok (would've been great if i could see it) but i'm talking more about the establishing stuff with London and Isle of Dogs and bringing in people), I loved Robert Carlyle until he became Michael Myers, and I like Idris Elba and Harold Perrineau but they were both underused. I wish it was better. |
