28 Weeks Later

"Execute Code Red."

When Danny Boyle handed over his breakout 28 Days Later franchise to Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, I bet that he wasn’t expecting the young Spanish filmmaker to upstage him so completely. 28 Weeks Later is a better movie in every way: prettier, scarier, sadder, more meaningful. What could have been a throwaway, cash-in sequel becomes one of the best films of the year, and the best horror film in several. It’s harrowing, heartbreaking and unforgettable all at once.

The vast improvement on its predecessor is evident from the very first sequence, a terrifying and protracted attack that seems to take place contemporaneously with the events of the first film. While Fresnadillo largely retains the unsteady cinematography and herky-jerk editing that characterized Boyle’s effort, the result is a different animal: where Boyle shook the camera and cut with a butcher knife to set a mood of chaos and confusion — to keep the audience off balance, for better or worse — Fresnadillo seems to want to reward attention. Watching the tour de force opening — in which a horde of infected invades the barricaded hideout of a group of survivors — I slowly realized that the frenetic, rapid-fire scene was actually a model of visual coherence. And this combination of chaos and lucidity made the suspense almost unbearable.

Even better, Fresnadillo shoots mostly (though not exclusively) on film. I know that some viewers valued the cheap, unpolished look of 28 Days Later, but I wasn’t one of them: the film was, alas, butt-ugly in its DV splendor. That may have made some thematic sense given its world-gone-to-hell milieu; here, by contrast, the bright colors and crisper images are an unsettling complement to the illusion of restored peace that forms the core of the sequel. The new look is cold and forbidding rather than merely drab; Fresnadillo’s aerial photography adds a certain sweep, moving his movie still further away from Boyle’s pseudo-homemade approach.

The plot, refreshingly, is unconcerned with topping the first film’s zombie action quotient, involving instead an American military presence intent on restoring civilization in London or, failing that, eliminating the threat that lurks there once and for all. Having determined that the last infected human has starved to death, the Americans begin allowing the remaining Londoners — those who managed to make it to refugee camps abroad — to return. One particular transport carries the two children of the guilt-wracked sole survivor of the opening massacre (Robert Carlyle); one of them, the 12 year-old Andy, is the youngest child to be permitted into the country. That’s what it’s all about,” intones the fearsome American Major in charge of repopulating the city. “Families starting again.” Of course, it rarely works that way in the realm of zombie horror.

Once the Americans lose control of the situation and receive the order to shoot indiscriminately, the theretofore sneaky subtext becomes roaringly obvious. But 28 Weeks Later isn’t dependent on its politics. Jeremy Renner’s frustrated sniper, who disobeys orders and joins the desperate group of fugitives when he trains his rifle on the boy, fits among the film’s political references, but also works as a more general humanist affirmation — something Boyle’s misanthropic film would never have allowed. And the movie stumbles on a winner with little Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), whose resilient, resolutely unobnoxious presence is both reassuring and nerve-wracking.

28 Weeks Later is actually rather unambiguous, at least morally — there’s no hand-wringing over the Americans’ ultimate decision, since despite its putative tactical wisdom, the film flatly condemns it as part of the military’s overall approach. (When a character opines that “it makes perfect sense,” she does so in resignation rather than endorsement.) And though I like a difficult movie as much as the next guy, this moral clarity is actually one of its greatest strengths. Where 28 Days Later remained planted in your head, its sequel invades your heart and your gut. As smart as it is visceral, it works better than I could have imagined.

-- Eugene Novikov

Released:	2007
Starring:	Emily Beecham, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Robert Carlyle
Directed by:	Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Rated:	R