“The days are numbered.
Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs – and it’s absolutely impossible to contain.” – Letterboxd Synopsis
This is the most 2000s zombie movie I’ve ever seen. In both good and bad ways. This movie gets talked about a lot in terms of must watch horror/zombie films, and it is also the movie that put the great Cillian Murphy in the spotlight. And as the most recent sequels have been the talk of the town the past year or so, I was interested in starting the series. This first movie is the most 2000s movie ever, good and bad, and while I came away ultimately liking it, it falls short of its acclaim to me.
The story is actually very compelling. A man (Jim) wakes up 28 days into a raging zombie apocalypse in London. He has to find his bearings and navigate the situation at hand. The first maybe 2/3 to 3/4s of this movie is him doing just that. Meeting new people, people dying, the group getting smaller then bigger again as they travel looking for some type of salvation. And this part of the movie is my favorite. Dare I say it feels comfortable in its own weird way. There’s never a moment without tension because of the zombie apocalypse outside, especially because these zombies fucking run. Like a full-on sprint from Left 4 Dead. Which makes them a constant threat. Also, the characters that come along for the journey are at their best in these parts of the movie as we learn about them and their temperament and how they’re handling the situation at hand.
The last act of this movie does fall short for me, though. It isn’t bad, but the way things go down is pretty jarring in regard to a certain character. In almost every apocalyptic story, there’s this underlying theme that, yeah, the zombies or whatever are monsters and they are out there, but the real monsters are us, the people, and how we treat each other in dire situations. The last act of the movie dives headfirst into this, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for that reason, but the way everything plays out is very sudden even though there are some building blocks; I feel like the movie didn’t quite convince me that the things that happen at the end were possible. But at the very least, the last act was fun, and surprisingly the movie ends on a kind of happy note, which I liked.
As a group, I like the characters in this movie. I couldn’t really say much for them individually; neither Jim, Selena, nor the others are interesting enough to hold this movie on their own, but as a collective they all work well together, and their defining character traits clash and combine to make them more than the sum of their parts. Particularly Jim’s relationship with the others. They do go through their own character arcs. The others are more equipped than Jim since they’ve been cognizant all 28 days and have adapted a bit more to the reality of the situation. Whereas we watch him adapt, be broken, find hope again, and see how that affects the others around him. And for what it’s worth, I see why this was Cillian’s breakout role; he portrays all of this really well, especially in the scenes without dialogue.
I’m so divided on the visuals of this movie. My best description is that it feels like a 90s/00s music video that you would see on MTV. And I mean that in the best and worst way. At its best, this movie is gnarly, while also having some really invigorating scenes of London’s central areas and countryside during this apocalypse. There’s also a scene with rain at the end that just looked cool as hell. At its worst, though, the erratic camera movement and quick jump cuts are way too much and take away from the action scenes. They particularly happen when zombies attack, which takes a lot away from those moments. Some of them are actually hard to watch, and it’s a shame because when the camera and editing focus, those scenes are really damn good. On the flip side, the soundtrack is amazing. It complements the vibe of the movie so well.
So yeah, I liked this movie. I can see why some people might even love this movie. It’s definitely something I can put on and just watch when my eyes aren’t being visually assaulted by crazy jump cuts; it is a solid film that tells a solid story. Which I think has the potential to be more in this world; that’s why I’m excited to dive into the next 3 movies and see what happens.
28 Days Later – 6/10
