Overall Rating
 Awesome: 53.32%
Worth A Look: 21.75%
Just Average: 7.69%
Pretty Crappy: 8.49%
Sucks: 8.75%
17 reviews, 275 user ratings
|
|
| 28 Days Later |
by Eugene Novikov
"No, no, see, this is a really shit idea."
|
I am the first to admit that I have issues with video that need to be worked out. More specifically, it is low-budget digital video (as opposed to the kind used in "Attack of the Clones" and "Russian Ark") transferred to film that I have a problem with; more specifically still, I think it looks ass-ugly.This is not a justified aversion -- there is nothing wrong with DV, and it is a terrific low-cost alternative for filmmakers not backed by big-gun studios -- but it still affects my opinion of movies that aren't married to the format (Dancer in the Dark would be an example of the alternative). They tell me film is dead, but I fervently hope that it is not. Change? Who needs change?
However, I also have an absolutely hideous affinity for doomsday movies, and that combined with my almost-hatred for DV made for an intriguingly ambivalent experience watching Danny Boyle's much-touted new end-of-the-world-or-is-it flick 28 Days Later. I couldn't help but be beguiled by his hybrid of The Stand and Dawn of the Dead even as I had the vague awareness that not only was I watching video, I was watching some of the most unpleasant-looking video ever released into theaters.
Many attribute the unwieldiness of Boyle's visual style here to his attempt to sync the imagery and the subject matter. One can certainly make the case that the terminal murkiness of the video and the rat-tat-tat, what-the-hell-just-happened editing are a perfect match with the story, which follows a group of survivors of (what we think is a) devastating worldwide epidemic that left most of the population in a vicious, zombie-like state, with the blood of the "Infected" being the carrier of the disease. But considering that there is actually an audience sitting down to watch this story, I'd say that even if the film's look is a choice rather than a mistake, that choice is mighty hard to justify.
Still, though Boyle seems to be doing his best to turn us off to the story he's telling, it's still a terrific story, combining the best of B-movie cheese and genre film hook. For one thing, the zombies here are actually frightening, as opposed to the comparatively innocuous specimens in, say, Resident Evil, and there is no yearning for them to go away in favor of more interesting plot elements. For another, the film is populated by characters whose fates actually seems to matter. While the protagonist, played by Cillian Murphy, is a somewhat vacuous Josh Hartnett clone, Brandon Gleeson's resourceful apartment dweller has a genuinely touching relationship with his daughter, and it leads to a heartbreaking moment late in the film when trouble besets him. Selena (Naomie Harris) is a great action hero in the first half, at least before writer Alex Garland turns her into a helpless victim.
I imagine some people will be disappointed with the last act of 28 Days Later, which abandons the movie's compelling science-fiction premise to focus instead on man's inhumanity to man and the like. It may not have been a wise decision to begin with, but it is well-executed once made. Though the climax is all-stops-out action, it is more thoughtful than the Kill All Zombies mayhem that I was expecting. I'm not sure if we needed that final scene, but I can't say I disliked it.
But in the end, I would prefer to read 28 Days Later, the (nonexistent) novel than watch 28 Days Later the film. It's a fun story, but it's not a fun movie; the editing is too jumbled and confusing, the video too ugly and unappealing. That may have been done to serve an artful purpose, but was it worth it? I wanted to sit back and watch a good doomsday movie, but got a little less than I bargained for: a good doomsday movie that looks like crap.(Review reprinted from FilmBlather.com)
link directly to this review at http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=6824&reviewer=419
originally posted: 03/04/07 06:47:02
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival series, click here.
|
 |
USA
27-Jun-2003 (R)
DVD: 21-Oct-2007
UK
01-Nov-2002 (18)
Australia
04-Sep-2003 (MA)
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed
![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
