11 May 2007

A.O. Scott gives a favorable review to the sequel to 28 Days Later (which I loved), called 28 Weeks Later. This one comes complete with American soldiers patrolling a "Green Zone" where the not-yet-zombified are supposedly safe from "the infected," at the heart of "a shattered country needs to be put back together, its remaining population protected and reassured." That country is, of course, England. And, lest we conclude that the allegorical elements are too heavy-handedly political, Scott assures us that "as in any good science fiction fable, the analogies it offers to contemporary reality are speculative rather than obvious."

Here's the review's lead:

Nothing satisfies the appetite for allegory quite like a movie about flesh-eating zombies. Somehow the genre, at least as practiced by its masters, has the capacity to illuminate some brute facts about the human condition and its contemporary dysfunctions. There are not many recent movies that match, for example, the social criticism undertaken by George Romero in his “Living Dead” cycle.

Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and its new sequel, “28 Weeks Later,” directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, may not quite be in Mr. Romero’s league, but at their best they come close to his signature blend of grisly horror, emotional impact and biting satire. There is, of course, plenty of literal biting as well, since the virus-crazed creatures known as infecteds crave the flesh and blood of their erstwhile fellow citizens.

And also their metaphorical flesh and blood. The first movie, set in the early days of a pandemic that nearly wiped out the population of Britain, followed a small band of strangers who came together to form a makeshift tribe. This time, after the first wave of the virus seems to have run its course, the focus is on families and comrades split apart and set against one another by paranoia, moral confusion and the endless conflict between the survival instinct and the call of duty. If “28 Days Later” was, in part, about the emergence of solidarity in the midst of crisis, “28 Weeks Later” is about the breakdown that occurs in what seems to be the aftermath.

Conservative critics aren't responding so favorably. Here's Jan Stuart of Newsday:

A despairing tale of a virus that stopped London dead and turned England's populace into man-eating monsters, "28 Days Later" was a modest but stylish endeavor with a surprising degree of heart, humor and, in the final clinch, hope.

"28 Weeks Later" gets the despair. Period. As directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo as if he and the entire cast had guns trained at their heads (which many of them do, as it happens), this sort-of sequel is a screeching and wearyingly hyperbolic exercise in film-school nihilism that finds buried meaning in the term overkill.

Can't please 'em all.

It's pretty tough to justify getting out to a movie when you've got a two-year-old at home and another kid on the way, but if there's any movie this summer that I'm craving to devour, it's this one.