They're barricaded in a high-rise apartment, and use their hand-cranked radio to pick up a radio broadcast from an Army unit near Manchester. Eventually they encounter two other survivors: A big, genial man named Frank ( Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter Hannah ( Megan Burns). Good-hearted Jim would probably have died if he hadn't met her. Selena becomes the dominant member of the group, the toughest and least sentimental, enforcing a hard-boiled survivalist line. Not that we are thinking much about evolution during the movie's engrossing central passages. I think the movie's answer to this objection is that the "rage virus" did not evolve in the usual way, but was created through genetic manipulation in the Cambridge laboratory where the story begins. 10" in our minds at one crucial moment (b) it eliminates the standard story device where a character can keep his infection secret and (c) it requires the quick elimination of characters we like, dramatizing the merciless nature of the plague.ĭarwinians will observe that a virus that acts within 20 seconds will not be an efficient survivor the host population will soon be dead-and along with it, the virus. That 20-second limit serves three valuable story purposes: (a) It has us counting "12. (Mark: "OK, Jim, I've got some bad news.") Selena, a tough-minded black woman who is a realist, says the virus had spread to France and America before the news broadcasts ended if someone is infected, she explains, you have 20 seconds to kill them before they turn into a berserk, devouring zombie. ![]() Wandering London, shouting (unwisely) for anyone else, he eventually encounters Selena ( Naomie Harris) and Mark ( Noah Huntley), who have avoided infection and explain the situation. Jim is the everyman, a bicycle messenger whose nearly fatal traffic accident probably saves his life. Spend enough money on this story, and it would have the depth of " Armageddon." Alex Garland's screenplay develops characters who seem to have a reality apart from their role in the plot-whose personalities help decide what they do, and why. The audience wouldn't stand for everybody being dead at the end, even though that's the story's logical outcome.ĭirector Danny Boyle ("Train-spotting") shoots on video to give his film an immediate, documentary feel, and also no doubt to make it affordable a more expensive film would have had more standard action heroes, and less time to develop the quirky characters. ![]() I suppose movies like this have to end with the good and evil characters in a final struggle. The ending is disappointing-an action shoot-out, with characters chasing one another through the headquarters of a rogue Army unit-but for most of the way, it's a great ride. It's a devastating ending for Cillian Murphy's character, and cancels out much of the hope found in 28 Days Later's onscreen conclusion.So opens "28 Days Later," which begins as a great science fiction film and continues as an intriguing study of human nature. While Jim's violent actions were the direct result of him being marked for death by the military men, and the soldiers also attempting to rape his friends, apparently that didn't matter to the authorities, as Jim was arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad. This fame didn't stop Jim from being punished for the deaths he caused while liberating Selena and Hannah from Major Henry West ( Christopher Eccleston) and his malevolent group of soldiers at Worsley House. The trio was dubbed the Manchester Three, based on where they ended up, and became famous due to being the first survivors rescued from Great Britain after the outbreak took hold. However, that safety would only be temporary for Jim. In the 28 Days Later comic book series, published by BOOM! Studios from 2009 to 2011, it's revealed that the plane did in fact see the trio, and took them back to safety in the rest of Europe. The three spell out HELLO from the ground to try and catch the attention of a passing plane, but it's unclear if they'll be rescued or not. 28 Days Later ends with Jim, Selena, and Hannah taking refuge at a remote cottage, Jim having recovered from his gunshot wound.
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