28 Days Later…

Before we get to the zombie lovin’, let’s do some previews. Or maybe A preview. Only one new one this time:

THE ORDER–Heath Ledger stars in this action/suspense/horror flick about a bunch of priests gone wild. And, no, they’re not taking over the bodies of little boys for their own sick pleasure. They’re actually trying to bring about Hell on Earth…or something like that. Only Heath and Shannyn Sossamon (rowr!) can stop them. The director/writer and three of the stars of A Knight’s Tale are back in action together.

Which, of course may not be a good thing. I, personally, thought that KT was kind of fun in a really stupid sort of way, but I do hope that this is Payback Helgeland and not KT Helgeland. Unfortunately there’s already bad news. The date was pushed back by almost a year to make the special effects not look “unintentionally funny.”

Can’t win ‘em all, Brian.

Now let’s get to the zombies.

Sometime in the near present, a bunch of kids break into a monkey lab to set them free. Unfortunately for them (and, it turns out, the rest of the world) the monkeys are infected with something called Rage. It makes them into blood thirsty, blood puking killing machines and the infection spreads within 10-20 seconds all through a human body.

The titular time period later, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find all of England barren of any life. Well, except for the occasionally brain-eating priest.

When he finally does find life it comes in the form of Mark (Noah Huntley) and Selena (Naomie Harris), two rather militant folks who are holed up in an abandoned building somewhere. Of course things go wrong and one of them dies. Guess which one.

They soon meet up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson from Braveheart and The General) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). They’ve been in their apartment for the whole month, but they’re pretty happy there.

But the decision is made to move on when they hear a broadcast from a military outpost.

And that’s when things start to go south.

Zombie movies seem to be making a bit of a comeback lately with this and the upcoming remake of Dawn Of The Dead. (Not to mention the fact that both Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are big-wigs in Hollywood now.) And I, for one, am very happy about that. Zombie flicks have been a rather fun addition to my cinematic education and I seem to be put here only to lap up as many as I possibly can before I become a member of the undead myself.

But this isn’t your typical zombie movie. You see, these guys aren’t dead. They’re not even undead. These folks are “Infected.” They run (yes, RUN) around with red eyes and blood shooting out of most orifices looking for one thing: more humans. I guess they bite the humans, but they don’t make that real clear. There’s only one scene where Selena says, “Are you bitten?” and then it’s never really mentioned again. They just attack. They very spryly attack.

The acting is uniformly good with Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston (Elizabeth, eXistenZ, The Others) being the only “known” faces in the whole crowd.

Brendan Gleeson is fast becoming one of my favorite Irish actors. (After a Mr. O’Toole, of course.) He certainly has a presence and a lot of talent and is always fun to watch. This role could have been taken by just about anyone, but I’m glad he took it. He gave what could have been a nothing role and filled it with heart.

And Eccleston was absolutely creepy and unnerving as the leader of the military faction that they find at the end of their road trip. I hated him pretty much the first time he appeared.

Of course the rest of the crew was great.

The best character, though, was probably the English countryside. While the film was shot on crappy digital video, the cinematography was beautiful and creepy all at the same time. You never knew what was around the corner when you were looking at all of the trees and hills of Northern England. And London was full of danger at every turn and suspiciously empty. The crew could only film for a few minutes every morning while the streets were empty of travelers (asking the club kids to kindly not walk into the set), so I can imagine it took a LONG-ASS time to get the feel that they wanted. But it was worth it. There’s nothing creepier than an big empty city.

Danny Boyle has regained his title of Great Filmmaker with this one. Yeah, he wavered a bit with A Life Less Ordinary (which I didn’t think was nearly as bad as every one else did) and The Beach (which I know is bad, but I still liked it), but he’s coming back.

The only real complaint that I have about the movie was the ending. It’s a bit Hollywood. Ok, it’s REALLY Hollywood. (Of course, it’s the only scene shot on film, so maybe it’s just a dream. Hmmm. If that’s the case, then I like it.) But apparently they’re remedying that in about a week or two. For the first time ever a film is being changed within its initial theatrical release. (Not counting the times that Pixar drove more people into the theatre by changing or adding outtakes to the ending.) I wanted to see it before they changed it just to see what all of the complaining was about.

But it didn’t ruin the rest of the movie, isn’t just another zombie movie. It’s a movie about survival and human nature. Have we really evolved so much that we’re above the animals? Nope. We’re still killing each other. We just have better toys to do it with. And Jim’s devolution towards the end (wait! did I give away the ending? Does he turn into one of the Infected? You’ll have to watch and find out.) is pretty fascinating. It happens quickly, but it makes you think: how far have we come?

Not far, is my answer.

Now, send more zombie movies!