28 Days Later (2002/2003)
Drawing from George Romero's "Living
Dead" films and several other films in the same genre,
Filmmaker Danny Boyle crafts a post-millennium zombie
flick that is supposed to be edgy and new wave and
yet seems tired and familiar. Don't get me wrong,
as he proved with "The Beach," Boyle can make any
film with any star interesting. But in this film he
loses any momentum he has provided early on, in a
decidedly eerie first reel, by going on a arc with
the story that feels quite typical.
(Some spoilers follow).
The film could begin perfectly enough
with Boyle making excellent usage of the abandoned
cityscape as a nightmare world of the post apocalypse.
He sadly, however, decided that we need an explanation
for the horror that has become reality in his forthcoming
plot and prefaces the story with a prologue that explains
everything. The great thing about Romero's "Night
of the Living Dead," and its subsequent sequels, was
that we never knew exactly what started it all. The
best Romero would offer, in the astounding "Dawn of
the Dead," was that there must be "no room left in
hell." Boyle has no such subtleties here and his film
suffers for his ham- fisted explanation.
And while Boyle's film can often
compromise aesthetic for plot, it can also do just
the opposite, reaching for cool images when it makes
no sense. A rooftop scene in the early part of the
film, with numerous colorful Tupperware products strewn
about, looks awesome but makes little sense. It seems
highly unlikely that the character who has created
the plastic menagerie would do so.
My real problem with the film's
entire aesthetic is Boyle's decision to use DV for
seemingly the entire film. While the "attack" scenes
look really cool in this format, the film's more character
driven moments often suffer because of it. If Boyle
was a new filmmaker or if it seemed highly unlikely
that he could get the budget he needed to do the entire
film on 35mm film, I might be more forgiving, but
as it is it seems like a artsy-fartsy aesthetic contrivance.
The acting here is really nice with
the lead male and female easily winning us over. Using
relative unknowns is the wisest thing Boyle does here,
presumably learning from his experience with DiCaprio
on his last film, and this helps us to easily delve
into the movie's plot. Naomie Harris as the no-nonsense,
butt-kicking Selena is a particular standout. It's
truly wonderful to see a female character in a horror
flick who doesn't have to resort to becoming a Screaming
Mimi or a simply useless victim. Or at least that's
how it seems early on in the film.
It's too bad that Boyle's film falls
completely apart in its second half. Not only does
Harris begin to fall into the victim mode, but the
path that Boyle leads us down, sort of a grown-up
"Lord of the Flies," seems horrible contrived and
customary. We never believe that the guy playing the
army general would ever allow what happens to unfold
under his command. The idea that he feels he has to
placate his "men" by providing females for them to
fornicate with is so ridiculous as to be absurd. And
the idea that only one man in his entire outfit would
have a problem with this is equally unrealistic. Sadly,
these characters are introduced so late in the film
and the "men" in the platoon are reduced by the script
to little more than cocks in uniform so easily that
we almost come not to expect any character exposition
or development from them. Boyle really drops the ball
here. The film becomes derivative and silly in its
second half...
Of course, there are really insipid
moments in the first half of the film as well. The
taxi cab scene in the tunnel earlier in the film is
also not clever, not unique and not realistic. First
off, what the fuck are they doing in a taxi cab? Dude.
If I was going to travel in a zombie-infected post-
apocalyptic city where there were no other people
around, I'd break into a Hummer dealership and get
a real vehicle. This could have been a great product
tie-in even, but Boyle is more concerned, yet again,
with trying to be cool than trying to be realistic.
Think about it: I mean , the guy has obviously went
through all the other apartments to find all that
Tupperware for the rooftop water collection. He couldn't
find keys to a better vehicle when doing this?
However, in the end, all these quibbles
seem a moot point. Boyle had to appease his test audiences
by changing the ending to one that is more hopeful
and more promising. This too rings of a terrible falsehood.
It is little comfort that the American distributor
allowed the original, more dark ending to be tacked
onto the film after the final credits a few weeks
after it was first released in the states. What's
a filmmaker to do with all these problems? Maybe Boyle's
next film should be with no name actors, no test audiences
and projected in 8mm on a white sheet outside on his
garage. Then, maybe, he could create another film
as masterful as "Trainspotting" or "Shallow Grave."
Or "Dawn of the Dead."
Notes:
The only words spoken by an infected
person are "I hate you!" The last words in the film
are the plane pilot, saying in Finnish, "Will you
please send a helicopter."
The DV format was used so that cameras
could be set up quicker to film the empty city scenes.
These were done early in the morning with many police
and locals helping Boyle to keep the streets clear.
Boyle even hired topless females to politely ask pedestrians
and automobile drivers to wait as well.
The hospital used in the opening
of the film is a British "day hospital" which is actually
closed on weekends, when filming took place. The tunnel
was an newly completed extension of a tunnel that
the filmmakers were granted access to. The building
in which the man and his daughter lived was a condemned
high-rise which has since been demolished.
The alternate endings were spoiled
on-line by UK posters who had already been able to
acquire the DVD version.
Many people have noticed a stray
car or a person in the background of the abandoned
city scenes and thought these to be gaffs but one
must assume that Boyle was aware of these (and could
have easily CGI'ed them out) but kept them in to foreshadow
his idea that there were some survivors here and there.
Released in UK in 2002, the film
had been sitting on a shelf for a while. The first
U.S. showing was at the Sundance Film Festival in
January 2003. The film opened fairly wide in July
2003 in the U.S.
Viewed in Austin in July, 2003,
before the alternate ending was added, with my friend
Johnny Oh!
