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MOVIE REVIEW
28 Days Later
(2003)
Starring:
Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson
Director:
Danny Boyle
Rating: R
Studio:
Fox Searchlight
Release Date: 6.27.03
Review
Posted: 7.01.03
Spoilers:
Minor/Major
By
Sara Michelle Fetters
"28
Days Later a Real Good Scare"
It’s one of
those situations you dream about in nightmares but that don’t
really happen. At least, that is what Jim (Cillian Murphy) keeps
telling him self after waking up from a coma to find, not only
the hospital, but the entire whole of London completely
deserted. No one; not a living soul; only chaos, destruction and
a really, really bad vibe, and Jim doesn’t like it at all.
If only it
really were deserted. Instead, the city – the whole of
England – has been hit with a virus of vicious and lethal
proportions. Within seconds of being contaminated a person goes
from being a normal everyday person to the personification of
menace: a mindless inhuman zombie looking only to rip and tear
and shred every other living soul apart. Luckily for Jim, he’s
saved by Selena (Naomi Harris) and Mark (Naoh Huntley) before he
can experience a tainted person’s rage firsthand.
After saving
him from some marauding parishioners and a flesh-craving priest,
Selena is explains to Jim the extent of the catastrophe that’s
hit London and the exact scope of the zombie – creatures she
nicknames the “Infected” – menace. During this period of
edification, Mark is bitten by an Infected and before he can
turn, before even given a chance to see if it is in his
bloodstream or not, Selena hacks him to pieces with a machete
right in front of a horrified Jim. This is now the world that
Jim has awoken to. In such a domain of fear and devastation, how
ever will these two keep their humanity – let alone their sanity
– intact?
Companionship
is a place to start. That’s what is keeping a father and a
daughter sane. In fact the father, Frank (Brendan Gleeson),
knows this is definitely the case and the most needed ingredient
for survival in this new world. It’s the reason he’s been
searching out for other survivors, wanting to make sure he and
his child, Hannah (Megan Burns), have more than just each other
to fall back on if things get dire. But, he also wants others
around in case the unthinkable happens and he, too, becomes one
of the Infected. That way, they can take care of doing him in
and also make sure Hannah won’t be left alone to fend for
herself.
At first,
Selena isn’t sure she wants to connect herself with anyone else
but Jim convinces her otherwise. When a faint radio single hits
the airwaves promising protection and salvation a few miles
outside of Manchester, the quartet piles into Frank’s old taxi
cab to make the perilous journey towards the signal’s locale.
Faced with hordes of Infected in their way, is this a journey
worth making? And, once there, how can they hope to know that
safety really will be provided?
This is only
the chilling set up to Danny Boyle’s marvelous new film 28
Days Later. An ingenuous take on the old George Romero-style
zombie movie, this straight forward and unsentimental horror
film is one for the ages. Downright chilling, it scares in ways
few films of late have dared, choosing to take seriously its
subject matter and refusing to inject the proceedings with any
sort of stylized, self-knowing sarcasm.
This is more
than a bit surprising considering the source. Boyle, the
director of Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and
The Beach, isn’t exactly known for taking a direct approach
to his films. In fact, the hipper-than-life vibe of both of the
first two, and also Boyle’s underrated Hollywood debut A Life
Less Ordinary, was part of what gave each of them their
kick. But, that tactic was a bit less successful in The Beach,
a movie that never quite added up despite the promising nature
of many of its pieces and it started to look like Boyle’s
cynical style was starting to show some seams.
But an
un-mocking horror film based on principals that have been poked
fun at ever since the first walking dead strode across the
screen? I didn’t see that coming. And it isn’t just because the
horror, drama and humor of 28 Days Later flows directly
from the organic structure of writer Alex Garland’s script, but
also because Boyle infuses it with a dream-splattered immediacy
that echoes so much of the world-weary reality of today. This
feels like something that could happen and, as such, it’s hard
to imagine not taking a road very similar to that traveled by
the almost all of the main characters.
It also
helps, of course, that Boyle stages some magnificently intense
set pieces. That first walk by Jim through the empty streets of
London is a doozey, as is a journey through an underground
tunnel as the quartet tries to flee out of the city. I also
loved the group of soldiers led by the great Christopher
Eccleston (who’s worked with Boyle before in Shallow Grave).
They’re just as scared and alone as those they are supposed to
be trying to save and their final motives maybe being even more
horrifying than the zombie menace lurking right outside.
Granted,
28 Days Later is no walk in the park. Even at over just
100-minutes the film is a tad long and the graphic nature of
much of what is taking place on screen isn’t going to be
everyone’s cup of tea. Also, the movie is shot on digital video
and while Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography has the effect of
giving the proceedings a viscerally immersive feel, the brightly
grainy image does take some getting used to.
Not that
any of that really matters. Impeccably acted, scored and edited,
Boyle’s film hits to the jugular like an uppercut from a
heavyweight champion leaving me more than a bit cowered by the
time of its bittersweet coda. It may be harsh, it may not be
easy to take, but 28 Days Later more than gets the job of
scaring the living daylights out of an audience done. This is a
great movie.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
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