Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
28 Days Later, 12 May 2003
When I saw this film I had no assumptions about it whatsoever. I was pleasantly suprised.Danny Boyles latest piece far surpasses previous projects such as 'The Beach' allthough not the box office smash 'The Beach' was this film has been grossly under appraised. Though he has proved himself over previous years to be a excellent director, in the horror / thriller genre of 28 Days Later he has found his niche. The film has a unique and twisting plot which exhibits and element of realism rarely seen in a film of its kind. Unlike most horror movies of the past decade, it is impressively belivable, this is accentuated by the enitre film being shot with DV cameras. We see a post-apocalyptic London, desolated by a freak virus, aptley titled 'rage', which has basically turned the majority of the UK population into psychotic zombie-esque killers. The story follows everday guy (Cillian Murphy) in a journey of dealing with the realisation of the changed world and his survival. Teamed up with a handful of survivors, they struggle to find hope in this starkingly eerie and threatening world. Alhough the film has no A-List stars in it, it includes great performances by such people as Christopher Ecclestone as a sinister army commander. The whole film is beautiful, belivable and scares the hell out of you in its approach. A true British classic which again has gone relatively unappreciated because it lacks the Hollywood glitz of other films. If you want to be scared, watch this movie.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bleak, violent - and excellent, 10 May 2007
'28 Days Later' serves up nothing more or less than a mercilessly depressing, pessimistic take on human nature. Sounds terrible? It isn't; that's one of the last things about the film that should put you off. The narrative is essentially simple, reminiscent of a dark, violent remake of Watership Down with humans. A highly contagious virus infects the population of Britain, causing the afflicted to transform into rage-filled, bloodthirsty zombies; a handful survive the subsequent downfall of society relatively unscathed, and set out together with the sole intention of staying alive. Salvation is seemingly found in an elite colony of soldiers, but things go inevitably awry.
The film wastes no time establishing a backdrop to its plot before plunging almost immediately into the action. It's a refreshing experience to be directly knee-deep in vicious brutality; cumbersome introductions are cleverly avoided and, while this does render the storyline simplistic and provoke questions, it's a smart move. '28 Days Later' is a sometimes harrowing, less often reassuring, but always powerful assault on the senses. It pummels the viewer with relentless violence and piles on the tension without ever becoming out-and-out terrifying. It's a lo-fi, gritty piece of work, haphazardly shot - a device overused to suggest realism and hard-hitting rawness, but curiously successful here.
It's peppered with compulsory reflective moments and the odd splash of humour, making it identifiably British, and preventing the film from becoming genuinely upsetting by conveying a persistent sense of hope in the face of adversity. The camera lingers for perhaps too long on depictions of a deserted, windswept London - deeply in love with its own imagery, nevertheless providing some gorgeously conceived panoramics.
The simplicity of the film and its direct approach mean that, of course, other aspects suffer. Some moments are either purely unbelievable or appear gratuitous; the predictable romance between the two leads feels laboured and unnecessary, and it's easy to question exactly how a man and his young daughter living in a flimsy block of flats would manage to survive an infection that has ravaged virtually a whole country. It's never revealed why, or by whom, the disease was created - a more detailed explanation of its origins would have added intelligence to what occasionally seems like a generic horror movie. However, the presence of a competent cast helps, with the absence of hyper-famous Hollywood names being an advantage. The audience is left free to concentrate on the combined efforts of a strong group, putting individual performances on a level with the constant, near-exhausting, bursts of high drama.
'28 Days Later' is far from flawless, but it feels like a rewarding experience. It manages to combine the most distinctive features of a crowd-pleasing blockbuster (an easily followed plot, characters neatly divided into 'good' and 'bad', lots of action) with the atmosphere of a down-to-earth, low budget flick (erratic, grainy camerawork and themes that veer towards the disturbing). The result is a film that avoids being taxing or unintelligible while still convincing the viewer that it's a cut above your average cinema fodder.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new type of terror, 8 May 2003
At last, a genuinely frightening film. Being an avid, if somewhat jaded, horror fan, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to be truly scared. This film is terrifying on so many levels- and whatever particulary scares you, you'll find it here. There's jump-out-of-your-seat shocks, tension-building "look behind you!" moments, grabby-leg bits that make you lift your feet off of the floor, and twitching zombies that are clever and chase- fast. As well as being pant-wettingly scary, the images from the film leave a residual fear that will still be with you six months after you see the film for the first time. Walking home from the cinema, I was almost in tears from terror, hiding behind cars if I saw other people and finally, locking myself in my house with all the lights turned off so that the zombies wouldn't know I was in. Even now, I have "zombie-flashbacks". The scariest aspect of the film is that you feel you cannot hide anywhere- locking the door and hiding under the covers will not make the nightmares go away. This film is amazing, and the score plays on your subconcious mind in much the same way as The Exorcist. Whether you're after quick, but effective, scares or a more long-term, psychological terror, this film delivers. A word of warning- do not watch this alone.
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