28 days after, uh... something

Today I'm gonna try something new. It's what I'm gonna call a "mini-review". It's just like a normal article, except it's a lot shorter and has no pictures. Plus the lack of proper intro and conclusion. This doesn't count, it's just explaining how the mini-review works. Maybe sometimes there will be a couple pics, but not for today at least. I think that I'll start on a high note today, and review my first movie. Sure, I said I'd do a review of Airplane, but that fell through because I can't find it and I swore off downloading movies and music. So like the title says, I'm gonna take a quick look at the newest zombie horror-type film, 28 Days Later.

Now before I get into it, 28 Days Later is not your standard zombie flick. Sure, the plot might be somewhat similar to a certain movie about a certain Resident Evil, but on the whole, it's a very original movie, in all respects. At least I think so.

It starts off with some animal rights geeks busting into a monkey testing lab. A lone scientist begs them to get out and leave the monkeys in the cages, but you know those anal animal rights geeks. They don't listen, and bam! world-treatening situation. See, these monkeys were infected with what the now-dead science guy calls "rage". It seems that it turns the carrier into a bloodthirsty monster. And now the plot is settled.

The greatest part of the movie is undeniably the way the title is worked in. After the monkey attack, the screen goes black, says "28 days later..." in the corner, and goes to 28 days after the incident. Here we find our hero, cleverly named Jim, naked and alone in a hospital. He awakes to find the place a mess and the city deserted. After stumbling around for a while, Jim runs into his first "infected", ironically, a priest. He runs, and several infected chase him until they're blown up by some mysterious masked not-infecteds.

So they save him and get all "we need to survive" on him. I only remember the chick's name was Selina (I think), because the other guy gets hacked to bits later on. Then Jim and his new buddy find some other buddies, a fat guy named Frank and his daughter Hannah. They all go on a road trip to find some kind of sanctuary. And then Frank gets mad at a crow, resulting in the dropping of infected blood in his eye. Oh, I forgot to mention that the "rage" travels by blood, and getting even a single drop of it in your bloodstream will have you turn into a murderous animal of your former self within 22 seconds.

I'll leave you there, because I don't want to spoil the rest of the movie for you. Already I think I've given too much away. Then again, you know from the first time you see him that Frank is gonna die. So I'll say that I'm in the clear this time. Now to look at the more cinematograpical parts of the movie. It's fun to make new words.

I'm not sure why, but people seem to be very critical of actors' acting ability. Personally, I can't tell exactly what good acting is from bad acting, so it's really all the same to me. I suppose that you'd say the actors are good in this particular movie. I know that the infected give rather convincing performances. Especially the army guy, who you'll get to know better when you watch the movie.

Speaking of the infected, they are what really separate this film from other zombie flicks. These guys are not your daddy's zombies. While they look like the generic zombie (perhaps less decaying) they certainly don't act like 'em. These guys are fast. They run like Hell until they've caught their prey or die trying. They're essentially people reduced to the lowest form of animal consciousness, and covered in gore. Not to mention their enjoyable pastime of spitting up buckets of blood.

The music is for the most part what you would expect, very moody and frightening. But when things aren't totally down the crapper for the stars, the music is very upbeat and happy, soothing even. I don't know how to explain why it works, but it does. And (to my knowledge) it's all made specifically for the film, no bands of any sort that I could recognize.

As for anything else, the special effects were great. Actually, all effects were great. They actually filmed it in London of wherever, and somehow they did it without any signs of life at all. No lights on, no car, no people, no noise. Nothing. It's really something you can think about and appreciate. The infected effects were above par, mostly because they didn't have to do the falling apart like most zombies, and just put lots of fake blood all over them and pop in some red contacts. I should also mention that there is a nice amount of exploding in the flick, and good explosions can salvage almost any movie. I also liked when they did "infected-cam" scenes. I'm not totally sure why, but they were a fun part of the movie.

The DVD extras are always my least favorite part. They're usually crappy storyboards or music videos. This one came with storyboards, production photos, and a nice surprise, 3 extra endings. My beef is that two of the endings are the same ending, just cut into two. The third one, the "Radical Alternate Ending" is the crème de la crème of special features. It's a storyboard with voiceovers that shows a completely different end, not just with a minor twist like the previous two. I would have loved if it had been shot and put in, as it seemed like it would be enjoyable to watch. Heck, I liked it a little more than the real ending. I'm not sure if there were any other features, cause I didn't check, but chances are they weren't worth checking out anyway.

Overall, I really loved 28 Days Later. It wasn't scary in the least, but it was a lot of fun. The only part I didn't like was the brief and obscure wang shots, and the man butt. But those were over right away, and they were quick so they didn't interfere too much. Sadly, that was the only type of nudity in the movie, but that can be forgiven. There was plenty of blood and gore, which I loved. Nothing better for a horror than tons of gore. There was plenty of cursing, which I'm impartial to, and the "attempted rape" scene was barely that. The story was solid, at least I think so, and it made enough sense to be plausible. This movie definitely gets my seal of approval. A+