Set six months after the Rage Virus outbreak that erupted in “28 Days Later” (2002), everyone believes that all the infected are dead, and evacuated survivors are returned to the Green Zone in London. “28 Weeks Later” (2007) follows the two youngest returning refugees, siblings, older sister Tammy (Imogen Poots in her second ever movie appearance) and twelve-year-old Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), who join their father, Don (Robert Carlyle), who stayed during the outbreak and has an official position to help in London’s reconstructive recovery. Unfortunately, there is one infected person who is about to unwittingly spark an outbreak that threatens to destroy the entire family and thus the world. Do these children hold the keys to this destruction and potentially the salvation of the world?
Fun fact: you do not have to see “28 Weeks Later,” the sequel to “28 Days Later,” to understand “28 Years Later” (2025). “28 Weeks Later” would have been better if it was a prequel to the far superior “28 Days Later” (2003) or a horror movie in a vacuum, but as a sequel, it is shit. It is as if everyone who made the first movie had no idea why it became a hit, derived the wrong lessons from their success then decided to follow the standard beats of a disaster movie. A lot of the casual anecdotes or lines mentioned in the original movie play out here such as siblings getting separated, seeing parents turn or watching what happens to a crowd as the infection spreads over it like a wave. The eye gouging returns but lacks the same meaning as the first film. The overarching lesson of the movie is that kids are awful, and they ruin everything, but they did not ask to be here and did not start the mess so protect them at all costs so they can hopefully save us. Well, there is a third movie, so you know how that worked out.
Here are arguments in favor of “28 Weeks Later” being a great standalone horror film. The cold opening is so evocative, and Carlyle could have qualified for the Olympics in track and field based on his performance. It is a merciless, bleak movie, and every death is a twist to the knife with Don beating out Rumpelstiltskin as the most cowardly, worst husband and father on Carlyle’s resume. He is the last person who should have security clearance, but he is a survivor. He clearly loves his wife and children just not as much as himself, and it would be forgivable if he was not also a liar who greedily wants more than just to survive, but to be admired. What is with the obsession with the plight of twelve-year-old boys handling the fallout of their father’s inadequacies? Why that specific age?
Don as an infected person is a sign of evolution because he clearly retains a certain amount of intelligence as he manages to evade all attempts to kill him. It gets quite ridiculous and strains disbelief. His role felt pulled less from zombie lore and more from vampire mythology with the infected compelled to hunt down their family. It felt as if the slew of writers, Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Enrique Lopez Lavigne and Jesus Olmo were teasing with the possibility of exploring the theme of family annihilators who would rather kill their entire families than get embarrassed that they cannot uphold the image of traditional male roles such as protectors, but it is not really followed through. The Rage Virus is more closely aligned with toxic masculinity though the general human original sin of warmongering and violence is equally applicable but not entirely redeemed as it was in the first film when becoming primal worked in humanity’s favor.
Some of the US soldiers are the noble, tragic, self-sacrificing heroes, which is a huge contrast to the first movie, but the premise is very cold. They bring everyone back to kill everyone once things go south so worst reconstruction ever. If there was not so much star power in the casting, they would not be individuated or memorable. Jeremy Renner plays Sergeant Doyle, a sniper, and he gets such a brutal ending, which could have been a perfect alternative bleak ending to “The Mist” (2007). Rose Byrne is at her gentlest as medical officer Scarlet, and in an even worse parallel universe iteration of “28 Weeks Later,” Scarlet and Doyle would have become a couple at the end with a happy ending and decided to keep the kids. Harold Perrineau has nothing to do as a helicopter pilot who is friends with Doyle and is willing to break protocol to save him. Brigadier General Stone (Idris Elba) just says lines in a convincing way from the safety of the control room and looks pretty.
The subway sequence was chilling and reminded me of the “Rec” franchise. The constant intercutting between reality and security footage was very found footage franchise. “28 Weeks Later” has numerous disaster sequences that keep expanding as the movie barrels forward to its hopeless denouement. The filmmakers really decided to forgo any level of character development and bet it all on bringing to life what the destruction of London would look like on a more modest scale, the Isle of Dogs, which is a peninsula on the River Thames. Initially as people try to escape, some of the supporting actors in nameless roles start to stand out more than the military and other main characters, but that development gets snuffed out as quickly as it appears.
“28 Weeks Later” is more like an action movie than the first movie with the spectacle as the real attraction. It is nakedly more commercial trying to capitalize on the success of the first film. Meanwhile Danny Boyle wisely was working on “Sunshine” (2007), another brilliant movie that is underrated and needs more love so watch it instead.
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A big twist is that the mother, Alice (Catherine McCormack), survived the attack but is a carrier for the virus like Typhoid Mary. Imagine getting strapped to a gurney and unable to escape or put up a fight as your infected husband attacks you. Here is where the movie falls apart, which is why I refuse to give it any overarching kudos. If the infected do not see her as one of them, they would have continued to attack her until she died. She would not have one bite and survived only to get pummeled to death. She would have been ripped to shreds. I love the sheer nastiness of having her husband betray her two times.
Well, the kids do not know that they can transmit the virus so presumably when Andy gets rescued, I’ve interpreted the juxtaposition of the rescue with the Paris outbreak as rinse and repeat regarding Andy unwittingly affecting more people, he gets killed so there is no experiment to discover a cure because the kids do not know why Scarlet (Fever) is saving them. Oops. Probably should have mentioned it.
