Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER created a modern vein of zombie movies by bringing to bare a hi-def music video look and making the zombies really fast. In traditional George Romero fare, zombies lurch along slowly, dragging body parts and groaning. In Boyle's world they run, hissing and screeching and making ever louder, flailing gestures as they gnash their teeth before eviscerating you. Although Boyle's film was high on style, it also had some good scares and worked pretty well at building narrative momentum. It did succumb to some degree of narrative cliché (the ending was filmed twice and neither version works well). You were left wondering if this director is another style over substance guy who might be better off directing BMW commercials instead of awakening our hope that another cinematic visionary has been born.
The sequel (28 WEEKS LATER) is a second example of style (and in this case hype) over substance. The press for this film talks about how foreign director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was hand picked by Boyle. Like Alfonso Cuaron who directed one of the recent Harry Potter vehicles we are supposed to be enchanted by the notion that a foreign director can come in from outside the horror/fantasy genre and give a sequel instant creative credibility. Fresnadillo (along with cinematographer Enrique Chediak) does bring a grimy 16mm meets modern day desaturated green/yellow grunge look to the film. There are moments early on that give one hope that this will be a more substantial film than its predecessor. There is some political allegory (the repopulated London green zone brings to mind the Iraq war - both green zones are of course a joke) and the plot does show a stylistic expansion from the claustrophobic music video feel of Boyle’s film to one here that is more sweeping and even more visually oriented (great landscapes, tons of impressive aerials, and generally better camera work). I love zombie movies. (Ok these aren’t zombies they are “infected” with a virus but the net result is the same – they want to eat your flesh.) I would have loved to love this movie. It just falls slightly short.
Though I liked the acting and the visual approach and do credit Fresnadillo for making an effort to continue in the same general creative vein as Boyle, I simply feel that this director has bitten off more than he can chew. This is the story of how society deals with the aftermath of the viral infection/outbreak and how after a period of brief calm, the military loses control of the situation. This is less about running for your life and more about the breakdown of the social fabric (both on an interpersonal and a societal level). This one is about how trust between individuals begins to decay and about how no institution is capable of forging together any kind of blue print for the survival of the species. After the first half hour I had the strange sensation that it was only a matter of time before the infected would take over the story and chaos would rule. Similarly, I felt myself gradually bending toward acceptance of the feeling that the filmmakers also had lost control of the movie and it was beginning to drift. The lives of the characters eventually fall apart and the movie itself succumbs to the same sense of resignation to chaos. The story begins to feel as random as the military snipers on the rooftops, shooting both the infected and the general public in confusion. By the midpoint we lose hope that the narrative is sure footed and we begin to crave more scenes of zombie terror. Nothing comes to us soon enough though - and then the movie ends.
There is a feeling of objectification evident in Fresnadillo's approach. He lingers on gigantic aerials of a decaying London. He pulls back from the action. He pulls back from the characters. He shoots his actors against gorgeous landscapes. When London is firebombed by the military he lingers on the image of things burning. It seems that he is determined to be fascinated by vague concepts - of rage, of apocalypse, of chaos. Unfortunately he abandons his characters in that world. The film feels like a terrifying dream. You know the kind where the threat of terror is always there and yet there is a pensive, removed quality. Even though this director and his team have the ability to move in tight and scare the crap out of you, they do so far too seldom. When they do, it feels random. This is a movie with far more to say than its predecessor but because it dreams too big it accomplishes less. The thematic intent and social commentary begin to overwhelm the real monsters that should be scaring us – the infected.
Boyle’s film generated some heat and steadily built momentum. It was not perfect but it felt fresh and modern and was sure of what it was. The zombie attacks felt like a cinematic mosh pit of terror. In the closing scenes the music overwhelmed any sense of naturalism but that was the intended approach. In many ways that film (like it or not) was more honest and more effective if a bit rougher than the sequel. It kept the same characters front and center and created realistic human relationships that were allowed to grow over time. In Fresnadillo’s sequel, we start out with a fantastic opening sequence set up by the idea of what happens to a man who abandons his family. The film does stay with this family to a degree but the choices made in the script are questionable. The relationships are not fleshed out and the moments of human interaction are too few and far in between. These characters feel like chess pieces. You feel as though you can see the writers putting three by five cards with story points up on a bulletin board and then switching them all around until the story begins to flow. On this chessboard, in this movie, in this filmmaker’s head the people are lost to the fleeting fascinations of an ambitious director. In the midst of this consumption, Fresnadillo takes his eye off the narrative ball.
Perhaps as a society, some of us are also so pre-occupied with the idea that an apocalypse is coming that we fall victim to the same scattered tendencies on display in this movie. We elect tough guys to political office because we are a fearful culture. We allow the government and our military a degree of control that perhaps we should reconsider. We treat society’s lowest members even more poorly at times like this. These are all indicators of the direction in which we are heading and possible harbingers of doom. Nobody knows if there will be an apocalypse but we sure seem to be spooked by the notion. These filmmakers seem spooked as well. In 28 WEEKS LATER Boyle and Fresnadillo have become so scattered that they have either taken their eye off the ball or they never understood what made Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER work in the first place. For my part, I think the thing lacking here is a really well constructed script that should have fleshed out the characters more, kept us focused, and kept the locomotive on the right track. Instead, yet another ambitious, beautifully filmed sequel bites the dust.