28 Days Later (2003)
Director Danny Boyle has stated that he didn't want to make a conventional horror film. I don't think he's really made one at all -- what we have here is a high-minded drama with occasional bursts of gore. I give him credit anyway for generating large dollops of tension (as well as shooting one of the best jump sequences ever) in the film's first half, but the film trudges on and the zombies (oops, I'm sorry -- the "infected") stop showing up and may as well have been forgotten and we're left with long bits where nothing happens. It's basically a redux of George Romero's The Crazies filtered through Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead -- in fact, the third act of the film plunders Day so fully that Romero probably has grounds to sue. The difference is that Romero, while no stranger to zombie-free down time himself, used that time to develop his characters and give them personality so that we root for them to not end up as lunch. Boyle's characters, on the other hand, start out as ciphers and pretty much stay that way, which makes the film real embarassing when emotion and sentimentality are artificially injected halfway through. Still has a handful of great moments, and it's always nice to see Brendan Gleeson in anything, but the movie kinda sucks overall in my opinion.
Grade: C+
Director Danny Boyle has stated that he didn't want to make a conventional horror film. I don't think he's really made one at all -- what we have here is a high-minded drama with occasional bursts of gore. I give him credit anyway for generating large dollops of tension (as well as shooting one of the best jump sequences ever) in the film's first half, but the film trudges on and the zombies (oops, I'm sorry -- the "infected") stop showing up and may as well have been forgotten and we're left with long bits where nothing happens. It's basically a redux of George Romero's The Crazies filtered through Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead -- in fact, the third act of the film plunders Day so fully that Romero probably has grounds to sue. The difference is that Romero, while no stranger to zombie-free down time himself, used that time to develop his characters and give them personality so that we root for them to not end up as lunch. Boyle's characters, on the other hand, start out as ciphers and pretty much stay that way, which makes the film real embarassing when emotion and sentimentality are artificially injected halfway through. Still has a handful of great moments, and it's always nice to see Brendan Gleeson in anything, but the movie kinda sucks overall in my opinion.
Grade: C+
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