The film is packed with little vignettes, some of which are very effective. Then, as Fresnadillo does throughout the film, he drops the issue at hand entirely, in favor of a different, much more facile conflict one more appropriate to a slasher flick. Somehow, their youthful pluck and emotion is meant to show us The Way Things Are. What bothered me is not that they were fools, but that they’re presented as the voices of moral truth. Their naivete lets them behave like morons, and their simplistic view of the world allows them to pass pat moral judgement on those around them. You know the deal: children that act with no regard for the situation they’re in (“Let’s go wander out of the safe zone!”), but are simultaneously held up as the arbiters of unmarred moral clarity and truth (“You left mommy behind! You’re a bad man!”). One of the worst being consistently stupid children specifically Don’s two children. It all just ends up as a pile of thematic corpses littering the cold, dead London of the plot.Īndy and Tammy, his children, fill the role of the idiotic kids, whose motives are hazy and sympathetic qualities seem to rely on their age rather than their behavior.Ĭontinually, Fresnadillo does away with depth by relying on annoying and flat Hollywood tropes. In the final cut, entire themes and characters just disappear without so much as a nod. I bet it had to be edited to death to keep it from sprawling and lagging as it tries to juggle all of its subplots, messages, and perspectives. It’s possible that I didn’t notice them, but I suspect that 28 Weeks was just too big for its own britches. I was tipped off at first when I noticed a few scenes in the trailer that didn’t seem to be in the version I saw in the theatre. The whole thing smells of a lethal editing process.
(There’s a scene inside a light-less Underground station, shot through the night-vision scope of a rifle, that’s among the most powerful horror sequences I’ve ever seen.) But Fresnadillo presents us with the makings of 25 great unfinished concepts, rather than one complete one.
It was even effective at delivering genuine frights.
Tv tropes 28 weeks later series#
Well, the whole thing plays out like a series of music videos. One of the many themes that’s heavily presented and then discarded without exploration is the tradeoff of privacy for security through surveillance. This premise is ripe for a zombie tale, but the trick is: how do you restart an outbreak, show the reaction by the government, and create genuine human moments of drama? The film picks up after a US-led NATO force came in, set up a safe zone in London and is now beginning repopulation/repatriation after about 6 months. Well, the outbreak ran itself down after the infected starved to death (as they’re not technically dead or undead) and the UK was essentially emptied. This twist made 28 Days a big deal amongst zombie flick lovers, as zombies are usually presented as lumbering corpses. The rage virus is essentially a virulent strain of rabies that transmits rapidly through fluids, and leave the host a hyper-violent, blood-vomiting zombie-like terror that can run like hell. It’s a case of too many stories to tell with too little time for any of them.Ģ8 Weeks picks up after the events of 28 Days: the island of Britain is depopulated as the result of an outbreak of the “rage virus”.
Tv tropes 28 weeks later movie#
But he and his fellow writers managed to pick up and drop every single interesting theme and opportunity in the film, waving them in front of us just long enough to gain our interest, then discarding them in favor of some worn-out, big-budget movie trope that was either disappointing, aggravating, unnecessary, or the cause of some eye-rolling. Fresnadillo has the credentials for it ( Intacto is a brilliant film), so my expectations were fairly high. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (the director and screenwriter), with Rowan Joffe, Jesús Olmo, and Enrique López Lavigne had a big job ahead of them, and they did some great, great work on this film. Unfortunately, the film seemed to stumble at every turn where 28 Days came out running. Its predecessor, 28 Days Later, was an excellent reinvigoration of the zombie attack genre.Īlisa and I went to see 28 Weeks last night, excited about the expansion on the sharp, distinct zombie thriller that is 28 Days.
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