(2003) ****
My first Horrorthon movie so far that I watched with another person! Kind of a lonely little contest we've got here, no?
I liked this one as much as the sequel, which I watched (out of order, obviously) last week. This probably would have been my clear favorite if I'd seen it back in 03, pre-I Am Legend or 28 Weeks, as I'd imagine that this all would have felt more "new" at the time. Had anyone else been doing this morlock-type hyperkinetic zombie thing before Doyle in '03? If not, it caught on quickly.
Anyway, if you haven't seen this one or the sequel yet, they're very worth checking out. Up there with Alien/Aliens in terms of the action/horror hybrid genre, I'd say, and a similarly strong pair.
** SPOILER BELOW **
I think one element that I might have missed out on by watching them out of order, was ever thinking that these were indeed the last people on earth. I mean, that's probably what most original viewers were thinking up to the point where the plane flies overhead, right? So that probably undermined some of the tension for me, and perhaps dulled some of the thematic "end of humanity" questioning as well.
4 comments:
LS, yeah the sequence did change your opinions from the majority I have heard. Everyone I have spoken to about the sequel did not put it on the same level as number 1.
Miko, you've been silent for a while, I like the new avatar! Nice review, Landshark. There's a rumor that they're going to do 28 Months Later.
I agree with Miko there; the only punch that Weeks delivers is the stuff boosted from Days. I thought Weeks had a few serious logic problems, as well.
yeah -- loved the early scenes of 28 weeks later, with the refugees holed up in the farmhouse. robert carlyle's character ditching his wife was a really interesting move. you see people make the chickenshit move in these movies all the time, but it's rarely the "main character" that does it, certainly not someone with the relative star power carlyle has (at least over everyone else in this particular cast). it's the best scene in the movie and really got my hopes up for the rest of it.
problem was that other scenes that could have been really strong were gutted and half-assed. particularly the scene in which there's that massive group of people locked in a room and the virus is spreading rapidly among them. great concept, but the editing is so shoddy and confusing, it mutes any dramatic effect the scene might have had.
the second was maybe more ambitious than the first because it worked on a larger scale, but i prefer the original which sacrificed scale for a greater sense of completion.
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