Frankly, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel ruins what original director Danny Boyle's "28 Days" did in 2003.
The ending of "28 Days" left Britain quarantined from the rest of the world, letting the infected die out from starvation. "28 Weeks" opens in a dark, dank farmhouse where a few survivors are holed up getting ready for dinner. As they sit down, panicked knocks come at the door and a little boy is outside.
But that's not the only thing that's come a-knockin' -- the infected have followed and only one of those survivors, Don (Robert Carlyle), is able to make it out alive. He coldly leaves his wife, Alice (Catherine McCormack), behind just to survive.
Skip to six months later, the U.S. has sent help and the city is starting to repopulate. But an unexpected pair of kids, Tammy and Andy (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), sends shockwaves through the city, despite the fact that they are reunited with their father, Don. The medical officers are unprepared and there's no babysitter around. So, of course, the kiddies are going to muck everything up and go outside the quarantined zone to visit their former home.
What they find is more than lost memories, dead bodies and molding food -- they find their mother who had been in that original farmhouse. She's a carrier of the virus, yet she hasn't turned. But of course, the virus gets out and now the world is at risk once again.
In "28 Weeks Later," there are no stars, there's no one to feel for and there are plenty of inconsistencies stemming from the lack of congruency between this film and the last. The creators were basically phoning this movie in by coming up with the plot that two kids brought down the world. However, it's still a movie that provides all the spine-tingling needed to make a horror flick work. It's still smarter than the average zombie film, too.
The cinematography of the film is quite a bit different, focusing on tight shots of the infected and shaky camera work. There's less biting shown by all the other infected, making it slightly better in that sense, but there's more than enough blood to go around. It might be that the two scenes that provide the most stomach-churning portions of the movie -- one involving a helicopter and one between Don and Alice -- were overly monstrous and therefore the rest was toned down to make more of an impression.
The best thing about "28 Weeks" was the music, which totally drove the scariness and tension of the film. Without John Murphy's score, the movie wouldn't have had the impact that it did. The orchestras rose and fell with the action of each scene and only amplified the motions of the characters and the terror needed.
But the let down of "28 Weeks" was that it undid the tiniest bit of hope that "28 Days" closed with. Instead, this movie closed with the option for a third film.
Advice to anyone thinking of another film: Don't.
Originally from Des Plaines, Ill., Heather moved to Milwaukee to earn a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University. With a tongue-twisting last name like Leszczewicz, it's best to go into a career where people don't need to say your name often.
However, she's still sticking to some of her Illinoisan ways (she won't reform when it comes to things like pop, water fountain or ATM), though she's grown to enjoy her time in the Brew City.
Although her journalism career is still budding, Heather has had the chance for some once-in-a-lifetime interviews with celebrities like actor Vince Vaughn and actress Charlize Theron, director Cameron Crowe and singers Ben Kweller and Isaac Hanson of '90s brother boy band Hanson.
Heather's a self-proclaimed workaholic but loves her entertainment. She's a real television and movie fanatic, book nerd, music junkie, coffee addict and pop culture aficionado.
