After delivering suspenseful thrills in Shallow Grave and a drug induced trip with Trainspotting, directory Danny Boyle stumbled a bit with the sporadic A Life Less Ordinary and the over the top The Beach. I'm happy to report that Mr. Boyle is at the top of his game with the new horror flick 28 Days Later.
In the tense filled thriller, a group of animal rights activists unleash a deadly virus when trying to free a cage of infected lab monkeys. Within 28 days, the virus has wiped out nearly all of Europe, turning it's victims into rabid zombies.
Certainly, Boyle was inspired by George Romero's "Dead" trilogy, but it's very reminiscent of Aliens and many other genre pictures as well. Thankfully, Boyle has made a great zombie movie helping me forget about the dismal Resident Evil. I'd even go so far as to say that as a piece of entertainment ripe with social commentary, I enjoyed this more then Day of the Dead, and there are big time similarities between 28 Days Later and and the last installment of the "Dead" trilogy including a crazy militant group and a caged zombie (remember Bub?). I was much more interested in the characters in this movie. They are very well drawn, and I wanted to see them survive.
The performances here are very good, particularly Brendan Gleeson as a single father trying to assure survival for he and his young daughter.
In the end, this is a movie about style and Boyle has plenty of that. The zombies in his world don't stumble around. They are silent and swift and attack without warning. And above all, their pretty damn scary.
Right out of the gate, Boyle sets the tone. This is a movie where anyone might be killed at any second, and I liked that. Certainly there are moments that are calculated and predictable. When our heroes are given a choice of taking a bright sunny trail or an dark, creepy underground tunnel to their destination, they choose the dark, creepy underground tunnel, and coincidentally, they even get a flat tire while making their way to the other end. This didn't bother me in the slightest, because I really wanted them to take the tunnel. There are moments like this throughout 28 Days Later, but it doesn't matter because Boyle has a firm grasp on his audience and this movie is very tense. It's also quite horrific in it's vision of a world destroyed by a deadly virus.
Some of my friends felt that the movie fell apart in the final act, when 28 Days Later more or less suggests that man is the real enemy. I had no problem with that at all. Although I did think that the movie ended on a sunny note, and would have preferred a darker send off.
It has been reported that Romero is hard at work on another "Dead" movie. I can't wait to see what he does with it. For now, Boyle's 28 Days Later is more then enough to wet my appetite. It's taut, thrilling, scary and beautifully shot. It's nice to see Mr. Boyle back in the game.
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