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28 Days Later (Full Screen Edition)

28 Days Later (Full Screen Edition)

List Price: $27.98
Your Price: $25.18
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Danny Boyle at his best.
Review: The basic plot of 28 Days Later is that a rapidly spreading virus that turns people into raging zombies (I say raging because the virus gives them rage), destroys the planet, (actually just certain parts of the world but thats a minor sub plot so I wont say anymore).

This movie has the feel of a really good Independant film. Dont get me wrong, this movie is terrifying stuff. Cilian Murphy plays a guy who wakes up 28 days after the virus was unleashed in a hospital. He meets Naomie Harris's character who is a woman will do anything to stay alive, including killing her best friend seconds after he had been exposed to the virus in a bloody violent, hard to watch, but awesome scene.

The only reason this movie isnt 5 stars for me is because of the actual theatrical ending. It wasn't a pleasant movie. It was sad and depressing, so the ending shouldn't have been pleasant. If you wanna watch this as a 5 star movie, watch it with the ending that ended on the cutting room floor. The ending is much darker and much much better for the mood of the movie. I think Danny Boyle actual likes that ending better too.

That alternate ending is on the DVD along with another ending, and a very interesting ending to the second half of the movie. It's also got the trailer, a documentary, a very entertaining commentary by Danny Boyle, the director, and the writer. I recomend this movie to all horror fans and to anybody that likes good movies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Scary!
Review: This movie was scary when I first saw it. It has good acting and a good story and plot. I recommed this movie to anyone who likes zombie movies.

MPAA: R
Running Time: 113 minutes
Year released: 2003

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Better to wait for it to come to cable
Review: This movie got a lot of attention like the Night of the Living Dead. I recently rented it and was greatly disappointed. This movie deals with a virus that makes people almost like mutant crazies that go around attacking other people.

A group of people wander London trying to get back to "civilization." While the characters in George Romero's classic were interesting and you really felt for them, these characters are dull and sometimes act crazy themselves.

The British accents were very difficult to understand at times. The climatic ending is in no way as good as Romero's film. In this film the survivors of the group keep trying to catch the attention of some overflying aircraft. They rig a big message and I guess they are rescued because the next scene is says it is 28 days later and the main character is in a hospital. Not worth buying.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Enigmatic Point
Review: "28 Days Later..." is a horror/thriller movie that seems to be attempting to say something very important. It's directed by Danny Boyle (of "Trainspotting" fame) so that makes me believe even more that it is a film desparately trying to say something. What it's trying to say though I have no clue.

The film takes place in England. It opens with a trio of animal rights activists invading an animal research lab at Oxford University. They come across a group of chimpanzees locked in cages. When one of the researchers happens upon them, he warns them about setting the chimps free because they've been infected. When the activists ask him what they've been infected with he answers "rage".

One of the activists lets one of the chimps out (of course, or we wouldn't have a movie) which promptly attaches itself to her face and infects her with the virus. Twenty-eight days later the scene shifts to Jim (Cilian Murphy) laying in a hospital bed having just woke up from a coma. There seems to be no one in the hospital and Jim starts wandering through an apparently empty London. This particular scene drags on a bit even with the nice shots of some famous London landmarks.

Jim riles up some unfriendly folks (some infecteds) and is saved from his end by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley). From here the movie descends into a survival or else type movie without offering much in the way for Selena and Jim to survive from.

The zombies (or, as they are called in this movie, the "infecteds") only make brief cameo appearances. "28 Days Later..." is not so much a zombie genre movie as it is a drive through the English countryside as Jim and Selena meet up with a father and his daughter who play for them a radio signal from the British army instructing any listeners to try and get to Manchester for protection.

It is obvious that Boyle is attempting to make his point at the moment when everything goes wrong at the military location that Jim, Selena, and Hannah (Megan Burns) reach. Perhaps Boyle is trying to say that we humans are only a few steps away from being just like the ragaholic infecteds and that civilization is a very thin veneer; but, for me, it didn't come through very clear.

Plot and point aside, "28 Days Later..." is a finely acted movie. The major problem with films like this is that typically the performances given by the actors are way below acceptable. Both Murphy and Harris provide believable performances as two strangers thrown together in terrible circumstances and they are given a script which treats them as human beings instead of as merely targets for the infecteds.

Like with "The Ghosts of Mars" much could have been done with "28 Days Later...", much more than was actually accomplished.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A religion
Review: Let's get two things straight.  Firstly, all zombie movies are a bit cliché because there are only so many things zombies can do.  (Pretty much scare people, eat brains and get shot.)  Secondly, 28 Days Later isn't a zombie movie, not really.  While it has a similar feel, and the writer & director were inspired by geniuses like George Romero, the people in this movie simply are not zombies.  They are still alive, they just have a blood disease, they are infected with rage.  This is why, throughout the film, they refer to them as "the Infected" and not "the dead" or "the walking dead" or anything of the sort.
 
28 Days Later begins with Jim (Cillian Murphy), who has just awoken in the hospital.  He finds himself alone.  Alone in the room, alone in the building, alone in London.  While the woken-at-the-end-of-the-apocalypse is not a new idea, the first 15 minutes of this movie manages to re-do it in a way that is still absolutely chilling.  Still we smile and understand what Jim is feeling when he scoops up the money he finds in the street.  Eventually, Jim is rescued by two other survivors who are holed up in a convenience store.  They fill him in on what has happened - a blood virus has broken out in London which causes people to go mad with rage and kill everyone they see.  Jim somehow convinces them to go find his parents who are halfway across town.  The majority of the film consists of travelling and hiding.  When they come across some more survivors who have nearly run out of food and water, they decide to follow instructions that have been broadcasted on the radio about the "answer to infection".  What they do find is something different all together....
 
There are some obvious nods to George Romero in 28 Days Later.  When the group raids a grocery store we can't help but recall Dawn Of the Dead.  Additionally, the latter third of the movie is obviously influenced by Day Of the Dead - there are just too many similarities to ignore.  Yet, it doesn't feel over-done, and it doesn't feel like a direct rip-off.  Three cheers to the brilliant director, Danny Boyle, for that one.
 
The extras on the DVD, well let's face it, they could never be enough.  The 'Making Of' documentary isn't really a making of - it's more of a scientific look at the idea behind the story and is quite fascinating.  The deleted scenes and alternate endings are as tasty as the movie itself, and the photo galleries are a must see - the still photographer they had on set was simply stunning.
 
I have to admit - I'm a zombie (and Infected) lover.  I'm a horror lover.  (Perhaps also a Cillian Murphy lover.)  I have to rate this movie with 5 stars.  I think everyone should see it.  I want to push it on them like a religion.  I consider it a must see and a must buy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best zombie film I have seen yet!
Review: This movie I saw and at first it seemed like a pretty boring usual horror film. Then I started to notice the plot was going somewhere, the zombies didn't move slowly, they moved fast which added danger. This movie I recommend to older viewers, so parents, this is not something for them. Its like watching Micheal Jackson for 2 hours. It inst suitable for little ones. The plot is good, It has a happy ending... it has violence but just not for the sake of violence. There is a reason for it. This movie is the best zombie movie I have seen since Dawn of the Dead.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Fizzle. . .
Review: What the heck happened? After a dramatic start that sets the table for pending doom and fatalism, 28 DAYS LATER devolves into a trite and lackluster military bash. It was much more interesting watching Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris doing battle with hordes of infected humans rather than a platoon of nimrods, but apparently director Danny Boyle decided a jarhead in fatigues was scarier than a snarling pack of red-eyed demons. I know I'm shaking in my sandals.

Again, the entire premise of this film is fascinating: A young man (Murphy) awakens from a 28-day coma to discover a deserted world. Well, not entirely deserted--the shadow of night brings out a demented population of enraged people infected with a very cranky virus. And like the zombie movies of old, the infected have a desire to kill the uninfected. Thus, Jim, our hero, is rescued by a tiny band of "normal" humans, led by Selena (Harris), who possesses loads of street smarts and attitude.

The stage is set for a spellbinding, apolcalpytic tale--a grand tale of survival against overwhelming odds--but instead, 28 DAYS LATER dissolves into utter nonsense when our group of heroes abandons London and travels north, lured by a military radio broadcast promising safety in the wildnerness. When I discovered the "real reason" for the broadcast I laughed so hard I rolled out of my chair, and almost hit the "STOP" button once and for all. Once the conflict with about one dozen soldiers is established, the zombies merely become props. Heck, the zombies even become instruments for the protagonists.

Go figure.

On second thought, don't waste your time figuring. 28 DAYS LATER is one of the most frustrating films I've ever watched, as golden potential for a white-knuckle thriller was squandered and subsequently flushed away down a cinematic commode.
--D. Mikels

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Derivative, Ugly, And Stupid Film
Review: I just watched this film and am quite perplexed as to how it garnered good reviews and so much attention when it was theatrically released. Shot on digital video, this is an extremely cheap, visually ugly film which rips off George Romero's zombie trilogy, especially elements of Day of the Dead (the weakest of the Romero trilogy) and also adds in what are now hoary cliches from other post-apocalypse films. The film's one inventive touch is that the virally infected don't lumber around aimlesly but are infused with an almost superhuman strength and speed. Other than that, I won't belabor you with my litany of complaints about this film, since there's already a surfeit of negative reviews posted. However, I was particularly offended by the deliberate stupidity of some the plot, such as the infected soldier who is chained up, who you just KNOW is going to get loose to wreak havoc, and the putative hero Jim's act of setting him free, and the whole last act of the film.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Bad ending/beginning
Review: This movie was alright, as it made you think about what would happen if you were stranded all alone fighting to survive.

However, it did leave some open questions I really hoped they would have answered at the end. What was happening in the rest of the world? First they said the virus spread to Paris and New York, and later they said England was quarentined. I wanted to know what the rest of the world was thinking and doing. Basically, the ending sucked... totally anti-climatic.

I wouldn't recommend buying it. Maybe watch it on HBO, borrow it, or maybe rent it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good thriller!
Review: Unlike Hollywood, British-made thrillers always seem to go beyond the call of duty. This movie is remenicent of doomsday flicks like "The Omega Man" and "The Last Man on Earth". Unlike those movies, this has real suspense. The gore and blood is too much to take, but what I liked about the movie is its clever cinematography and editing. The climax, however, left me cold asking, "is that it"? Something like an unfinished term paper without a conclusion. It could have been much better if the loose ends would have been completed. With that said, it's still a good thriller!


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