Director Danny Boyle's vision of the postapocalypse, 28 Days Later, is riddled with scenes we've seen before.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published June 26, 2003
[Photo: Twentieth Century Fox]
Cillian Murphy plays plague survivor Jim, one of London’s remaining warm bodies, in 28 Days Later.
The zombies run faster and the gore is more realistic, but 28 Days Later is little else than the result of filmmakers watching too many George Romero movies. Romero took viewers through a night, dawn and day of the living dead in a classic trilogy of shockers. 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle settles for a grisly brunch hour.
Boyle isn't ashamed to lift from Romero's film (or The Omega Man, for that matter), adding a scary tunnel sequence to indicate that he also read Stephen King's The Stand. Moviegoers can check off the influences scene by scene, noting a degree of improvement in some and wondering how Boyle could be so obvious in his cribbing strategy. 28 Days Later is smart fun for horror fans to devour, yet there's always a nagging feeling that we've seen this terror before.
Like its influences, 28 Days Later concerns the effects of a worldwide plague that creates a postapocalyptic landscape. Whether it's Vanilla Sky, an episode of The Twilight Zone or this film, there is something inherently creepy about a lifeless city with one confused person wandering the streets. This time it's London, and the lonely survivor is Jim (Cillian Murphy), a coma victim who slept through the plague.
Jim isn't lonely for long. A visit to a church introduces him to a flesh-chomping priest and two survivalist humans: Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who are hiding out of sight and running out of bullets. They're not running out of food, though, because Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland include a shopping spree in a deserted store a la Dawn of the Dead. They also add a doomed parent and child relationship (Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns), like Night of the Living Dead, and military support that isn't truly helpful, like Day of the Dead.
The third act of 28 Days Later is most effective, when circumstances turn the zombies into good guys compared with the bad things that humans are doing to each other. Boyle has some kind of social commentary lurking underneath the bloody surface, from animal rights activists who ignite the plague with their do-gooder deeds to institutions such as the church and government turning against the people they're intended to protect. But allegory always takes a backseat to gore.
The freshest touch Boyle adds is using digital video cameras - a dash of The Blair Witch Project - to bring a suitably urgent look to the situation. The tactic works better in darkness and closeups, especially when pixilated rain falls on an anguished face, making 28 Days Later resemble the nightmare it's trying to be. Even with such flashes of brilliance, Boyle's flesh-munching saga tastes like leftovers.
