28 Weeks Later... It can wait.

I'm a fan of zombie movies. Good or bad, I tend to enjoy watching films reflecting of survivalism and being paranoid of your neighbors. Although I found 28 Days Later to be anti-climatic overall, I was willing to give 28 Weeks a clean chance at impressing me. It's new directors, new writers, and 5 years later, I thought I'd forget it was a sequel past some of backstory needed. I was disappointed.

28 Weeks centers of a family separated because of the virus causing the infected to go mad and bite each other, spreading the virus like running zombies. The family is reunited in London, where U.S.-led NATO forces quarantine part of the city for rehabitation and repopulation. Of course, something goes dread-fully wrong, the military over-reacts and the family is in the center of it.

The movie is entertaining and climatic for the first 45 minutes, right up until the initial outbreak and widespread panic is over. The directors do a good job showing the military activity, public panic, and raging infected. Feelings of costraphobia and paranioa take toll, and for reasons beyond blood and guts, it becomes disturbing to watch (like a good horror film). The central mistake is film ends this too quickly and the horror is no longer mass panic and military confusion, but the genre's usual scenes, topped with predictibility.

The military as a bad-guy in the film becomes overplayed, showing up too often, having the scenes consistantly change from "running from zombies-running from soldiers-running from zombies..." This is where it became predictable.

The strong use of the military as the horror didn't go unnoticed. Almost immediately after 28 Weeks came out, critics and bloggers claimed the film was a message about the US military. I disagree. The American flag (or any flag), is absent in the film. No overtly stong accents show up. While the military's strong presence and "big brother" feel throughout the film are taglines for the horror, and are excellent, they don't come off as a message.

For my standards, the movie sells and is worth compairing to other zombie films. Regrettably, it is only worth the first 45 minutes, and after that is it not entertaining and is nothing special. I would wait for it to come out on DVD, but I wouldn't rush to buy it, and I wouldn't suggest paying the extra money for a two-disc edition.