28 Days Later

I saw this (on DVD) last night at a friend's place. I saw it in the hire place, thought it had potential, so we picked it up.

Well, it had potential, but it didn't deliver.

Premise: A guy wakes up in London from a coma, only to discover that London has been evacuated, and there are some crazies running around with a virus called Rage. He meets some uninfected people and together they travel north to seek out help, and a cure.

The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, who wrote The Beach (now a film), and directed by the director of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave.

I think, if this movie ever was a book, it should have stayed a book. Readers are much more forgiving than movie go-ers. The movie was FULL OF HOLES!!! The biggest one to me was that these crazies are running around infected with this virus that fills them with rage, and makes them attack the lead character and chase after the other people he meets, but why on earth aren't they attacking each other? They're all psycho, yet they can tell the difference between infected and uninfected?

If there was an explanation for it, it wasn't in the movie. People say you get the explanation from the director's commentary. But you shouldn't *have* to, thats my point.

It was also very War of the Worlds. Lone survivors after an attack wander through empty London, and meet a nutty soldier who thinks he can rebuild. Basically they get up to Manchester where about 9 soldiers have holed themselves up in a large country house, and their "solution" to the virus, is to start again, with the women this guy has brought with them. They escape eventually, and by the end of the movie you're shown them in a small house out in the countryside, flagging down a plane that's going overhead, so you presume it's a happy ending.

Apparently there are metaphors all through the movie. I didn't catch them, unless they were lame and I just rolled my eyes.

This storyline would work much better in a book. The reader gets to fill in the blanks himself. If you're like me, you fill the holes in and you keep reading. If you're less discerning, you just read without thinking. One of the guys the lead meets has put buckets on his roof, because there isn't any running water. Why can't they pop down to a supermarket for all the bottled water? They go through a supermarket later, why didn't they think of that before? In a book you would just imagine the imagery of all those buckets, and not think about it.

Anyway.. there are saving graces (even if they weren't enough to really save it). Firstly, they managed to clear out large sections of the centre of London. Quite impressive to see Westminster Bridge Road with no people on it, with papers blowing in the wind. Other locations - the cenotaph on Whitehall, that was just eerie, and Picadilly Circus with no cars. Very bizarre.

Secondly, it was filmed entirely in digital video. Wow! Gave it a bit of an edgy feel, and very clear in places, and the colour was very distinctive. With my own interest in DV it was great to see a feature-length film utilising it. So that was very cool.

But yeah, thumbs down overall, which is a pity.