28 Weeks Later

Cafe Society
1

I watched 28 Weeks Later tonight. Man, that sucked. Let’s see:

First of all, we are apparently supposed to have sympathy for the dumb bitch who let the kid in and thus caused the deaths of all of the people living inside the house. Ok, I get even that, it’s hard to ignore someone banging on the door. But then she loses her own life by trying to rescue the kid, and screams to her husband, “DON, SAVE US!” Don, prudently, hightails it out of there. What the hell is he supposed to do against six rage zombies? And he is made out to be an asshole for doing so!

Then we have to see Don’s stupid children, coming back from abroad. Right off the bat, FIRST NIGHT, they easily sneak out of the safe zone and go visit their home. Despite guards and snipers watching. Turns out mom’s alive, she’s an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage virus. They and mom get arrested and returned. Then they yell at their dad for not telling them the truth! At no point does anyone smack these kids upside the head for so blatantly violating quarantine. Which by the way, how is it so easy to sneak out of quarantine?

Then Don gets into where his wife is kept. They knew she was his wife. Military’s not dumb, they would know to block access to the husband. But they don’t. Do they even tell him she’s got the disease? I don’t know. He gets inside, and in a moment of stellar stupidity even for this movie, kisses her! Of course he gets the disease and goes crazy and kills her.

Here is the really brilliant moment - he gets back out! Ok, so we know rage zombies aren’t smart. They couldn’t operate a keycard to get out. So that means the door to her room is UNLOCKED. He kills a bunch of military guys, somehow, because there’s no way to lock him into a section?

Civilians are herded into some kind of room which is seriously easy to break into and Don gets in. He starts infecting everyone. Of course even before he gets out panic has already filled the room, and everyone is freaking out.

Ok, so now they have a bunch of humans running through the streets - I forget exactly how they got out of the rooms, my eyes were rolling too hard - and some of them are infected. There are snipers on the roof, told to only shoot the infected. Do you know how hard that is and how dumb? Snipers are good, they are excellent, but it’s a damn tough job. They do pretty well for a while but guaranteed they do not get them all. And then they finally say to shoot everyone, but how many people already ran by?

Then they spend the rest of the movie protecting these stupid dumbass kids. And no one, NO ONE, thumps them on the head at least once or twice and says “you dumb shits, you caused this plaque to start up again.” Ok, the boy’s only like 12 (which is still old enough) but I’m pretty sure the girl is supposed to be a lot older and should know better.

Somehow they get into a car, Jeremy Renner gets burned alive, and the doctor gets them into the subway. In the subway, they are attacked by…Don! How the hell did he get there? I thought he was a rage zombie! How did he know to go to the subway to the exact place they were waiting? Anyway he gives the kid the disease, who also becomes an asymptomatic carrier like mommy.

They then get to the helicopter and taken to France. BUT, the last scene, and probably one of the only good scenes in the movie, show that Paris is also infected, and the disease has spread onto the mainland.

Look, I liked 28 Days Later, despite its flaws. And I was warned this movie was dumb. I didn’t know it was going to be Prometheus-level dumb. Every single scene in it was filled with dumb people doing dumb things.

How does this movie have a 70% on Rotten? Do we like dumb people?

(I only watched it for Jeremy Renner. I am a fan. I actually felt sorry for him, that he had to be in this dumb movie to pay his rent!

2

Because it’s zombie schlock. People don’t generally analyze them to the standards of Synecdoche, New York or Dogville or whatever. It can be fun to nitpick and point out the dumb characters and plot but it shouldn’t really make you too angry as long as it delivers on the zombie goodness or apocalyptic atmosphere. Otherwise, no one would be watching The Walking Dead anymore. Pointing and laughing is part of the fun if you ask me.

Isn’t this the movie where a helicopter angles itself to slice and dices 50 zombies in a field? That was awesome. And that intro is great too.

3

I thought the first movie was dumb, but 28 Weeks Later was infuriatingly dumb, one of the few movies I’ve seen that generates that reaction in me.

4

it was tolerable and semi fun up to the end. The end just was too annoying.

5

This. Overall, the movie was dumb and infuriating for all the reasons Anaamika spelled out. It wasn’t enjoyable to watch even as something to point and laugh at.

The one bright spot was the helicopter scene. Absolutely ridiculous, but man, was it awesome.

6

Anaamika and Bryan thank you. I can watch zombies. I can watch stupid, sometimes, if beer is involved. But I can’t watch this. I think I’d have a stroke. You have saved me.

7

The opening scene was one of the scariest and most tense scenes in any zombie movie, pretty much top of the list and exactly what a zombie movie should be like. But holy shit did it go down hill after that.

8

Sometimes I can watch dumb movies, if they have something going for them. Like Prometheus - everyone was dumb, but the movie still raised some interesting ideas, and even if Scott wouldn’t explore them, I can in my own head. And Fassbender’s char was still interesting.

This, nothing.