journal features

movie review - 28 Days Later...

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2003.11.06

There aren't too many movies circulating with two endings on one rental VHS tape. This is one of them, and I think that the inclusion of a less-bullshitty second ending on this one speaks to the lack of direction that pervades the entire film.

It's about a plague that erupts in the UK. A plague wherein the infected are reduced to insatiably hungry, demented zombies. The story follows a young bicycle courier who wakes up in a hospital to find that not only the hospital but the entire city of London seems to have been abandoned. Soon, he encounters his first zombies, and then spends the rest of the movie running and fighting. Unfortunately, it's when he encounters an armed group of uninfected people holding out against the infected that things go from bad to worse. I don't doubt the kind of environment that these survivors have created would be all that realistic, but it seemed more than a bit disjointed with the first 75 minutes of the film.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges