Danny Boyle’s breakout horror film, “28 Days Later,” was the smash hit of 2003. Instantly becoming a cult classic, the inventive take on zombies explained that the creatures are infected with an incurable disease.

When word spread that there would be a sequel to “28 Days Later,” fans of the film waited for great anticipation for the next chapter in he zombie series. However, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s “28 Weeks Later,” which opened May 11, not only fails to live up to its predecessor, but should not have even been a movie at all.

The movie starts up literally during the first outbreak of the rage virus, the terrible infection that turns people into man-eating monsters, and follows one distinct family and their journey with avoiding infection.

At the beginning, Alice (played by Catherine McCormack) and Don (Robert Carlyle) take shelter from infection after the first breakout, thanking God they sent their kids away on a school trip out of the country. Don eventually abandons Alice when the “infected” come and storm their shelter.

28 weeks later, England is in a state of renewal. All the infected have died off and the American army has gone in and secured a part of London ready to start over, called District one. It is here that Don meets up with his children, Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots), who have been out of the country.

Eventually Alice makes her way back and she is a carrier of infection, but not truly infected. Soon another outbreak starts and the movie becomes a race to get the “special” children Tammy and Andy out of the city and to safety.

Compared to the previous movie, the sequel is over the top and a little campy, almost as if it is trying to desperately live up to “28 Days Later.” For example, Boyle, in “28 Days Later” uses an over the shoulder camera making it a first person point of view effect. The camera shakes, getting the audience to feel as if they are running with the protagonists. When this is done, if feels like you are there and a part of the art. In “28 Weeks Later,” this same camera technique is done but just a little too much, to the point where it gets nauseating. The camera is overly shaky and is more annoying than artistic.

Another problem this movie has is that it reads too much like a video game. Literally, it has an objective, get the children out of the city before they become infected or die at the hands of the army.

There is a villain, an almost super-zombie that follows the main characters from when infection broke out again to the end of the movie. This is the first time I have seen a particular zombie being traced the entire movie. The movie literally gives infection a face with this zombie, where before it was the mysterious disease.

By doing this, not only are production staff taking away some of the mystery of the first movie, but they are creating an arch nemesis, like a video game. There is even a man in a helicopter telling the main characters where to go, like a videogame’s objectives.

The movie was not all bad, however. It was entertaining and gave new insight on the rage virus.

It showed that more people survived than what most people thought and that infection did not get as far out of the country as the first movie led people to believe. Having new insight by the writers helps fans of the first film piece information together. And the acting was good, not superb, but good enough for a sequel horror movie. But the film is not what it could have been if Boyle directed it or if Andrew Garland wrote the screenplay, like the original. Instead there are new people trying to establish a story on an already created world. It really would have been a better videogame. At least then there would have been an excuse for the hookeyness.

FACT BOX

“28 Weeks Later” opened second in the box office last weekend, Friday, May 11 – Sunday, May 13, making an estimated $10 million its opening weekend. The only movie that surpassed the zombie flick was “Spider-man 3,” making $60 million during its second weekend in the box office.

“28 Days Later” opened fourth on Friday, June 27, 2003, and earned $10 million its opening weekend. The film later went on to earn more than $80 million dollars total, both in the U.S. and internationally.