28 Days Later REVIEW

28 Days Later: B

Ok, some of you know that I'm no big fan of politicized animal movements or other pseudo-psychological statements which largely attempt to anthropomorphize animals (attribute human feelings and motivations to animals largely to justify human investment of emotion and ego into them) --- if the animal rights activists did what they did in this movie and the world basically environmentally collapsed due to rampant virus, I'd be pissed

Personal remarks aside, this film is not the most scary movie since the Exorcist. In many ways it's a film with European art film sensibilities that tells a mostly good psychological yarn about what it means to live after most of what you know about the world has collapsed and faded away

I suppose the grand philosophical point of the movie is that the problem of our times is human on human violence, and that the apocalyptic virus has fed into that tendency and brought it to the forefront

More Sci-Fi than your American style horror flick --- I felt during most of the movie that I was watching an episode of the Twilight Zone/The Outer Limits rather than a horror film or zombie film -- the film is largely telling the tale of what may be the core of human nature

It was interesting because 30 minutes before the end of the movie, SheDev leans over and goes: does everybody die in this one? The answer is to be found in seeing this movie, but let us just say that there are some moments in this film where you must suspend your disbelief in order for the basic premise of the film to make sense

The vibe of this film is newsy, and kind of almost documentaryish in approach.
It is interesting to me that two weeks in a row I've seen movies where the characters feel like they have a vibrancy or life apart from the film and we get to see part of it. That is really a fresh way to do character driven movies, and I've really liked it as a filmmaking technique

The characters each have their own perceptions of the new reality and how to cope or live. The story arc is not unique in that it employs the "find the paradise" model of post-apocalyptic films --- it is very unique in that paradise is not all that is cracked up to be, and the movie really picks up steam after paradise is found

The film largely questions human motivations and belief systems. Everything from the global scale of the disease to the worth of love and life in a collapsed society is open to question, and viewer interpretation

At the end of the day, the characters are faced with choices relating to survival, freedom, and what it means to be a human (does it change just because one month has passed, virus or not?) --- intriguing mental candy

It's not perfect, sometimes the film does not push the envelope where it should logically go --- or where the movie would be sickening in its callous pragmatism --- it goes to that edge but doesn't push it over, that's my only really beef with the film. It doesn't trust the audience enough to give it a push the envelope ending

Largely the film is very effective in creating suspense, taking you on an interesting story arc, and then getting you to question aspects of human nature. This is a good movie to see on a dud movie week like this past week, and we would at least recommend a rent if you never manage to see it in theaters