A virus, a failed attempt at finding a cure for rage, is stolen from a London laboratory. 28 damn days later Bicycle-messenger Jim (Cillian Murphy) is hit by a car and wakes up at an empty hospital. But no one is around to take care of him. The hospital is empty so Jim leaves with a bag of lemonade-cans and starts walking through the deserted streets of London. It turns out all humanity have been infected by the virus and have now gone on a killing rampage. Eventually Jim runs across a small group of surviving humans (among them Brendan Gleeson, that big awesome British actor from Braveheart) and together they discover a radio-message from the military allegedly and they set out to find them.

Let's see, first there's a little question about whether these infected guys really are zombies or not. Well, their souls are gone and everything else is gone except their most primitive impulses and their rage and their urge for killing and that's pretty much a zombie to me, live or dead, so I take the liberty of calling them zombies from now on. Only this time they are not slow and stupid and you can no longer walk right past them.

That said, the first hour of 28 Days Later is fantastic. Some of the best post-apocalyptic moviemaking in many moons, taking in imagery and inspiration from current real-life issues like animal diseases, bio-terrorism, war etc. The scenes with a totally abandoned and deserted London are scary to say the least, images made even stronger as we for once really care about the small ensemble of surviving humans who have to deal with it. Even if they still insists on walking off alone into dark rooms and they should know by now that you can't do that in a movie like this without being attacked by a hiding zombie.

During this first half the filmmakers show great care in its homages and nods towards classics such as The Last Man On Earth, The Quiet Earth, Day of the Triffids etc etc and the shopping mall sequence (as well as the whole movie in general I guess) is a direct wink to Dawn of the Dead and the military base is taken from Day of the Dead. Even Bub the chained-up zombie from the latter makes a return as well, only here he is named Mailer and is black.

But as good as the first hour is, as uneven is the last. The introduction of the army unit baricaded in an old country house (no British film without an old country house) kick the film into second gear but it also lead us forward to a pay-off which doesn't quite arrive. Director Boyle has seemingly struggled with the idea of rewarding the audience with the expected goods or giving them something else and he decided for the latter apparently. Instead of the expected zombiastic showdown The Alamo-style the last reel becomes an incoherent and unsatisfying battle between the by now barechested and psychotic Jim and the military bad guys. It feels as if something is missing. Apparently Boyle and Garland tried to delete the whole military part totally and let the film just follow our first four survivors till the bitter end, which at least sounds like an interesting if downbeat idea to me.

In the end though, and believe nothing else, 28 Days Later is still a technically impressive genre movie nevertheless. It delivers a classic first hour and disappoints slightly in other parts, but for most of its two hour running time there's still enough going on to send genre freaks into multiple orgasms.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.