David Catts

In keeping with the terror of Days and Weeks, the intro to 28 Years Later and most of the first act are spectacular. Then there is a tenderness to the second act that was uplifting if out of place. The third act... well, I cannot deny that the third act was something that I watched with my eyes. What really hurt the film for me was a trivialization of the infected. Like I said, the opening scene was spectacular. Though treated as more endemic than apocalyptic, the infected of the first act still seem to pose a meaningful threat to even a hardened survivor. And as silly as Special Infected(TM) might seem, it's not beyond reason and adds a new dimension of danger. And then it takes a turn for the worst after Spike's party. Our father-son duo, a hardened survivor and trained-though-amateur boy, barely escape their early encounter with a tribe of infected. Then that same boy and his dimentia-ridden mother repeat the feat. The first alpha took fire without flinching and had to be dispated with a ballista. While the second alpha isn't terribly bothered by Spike's arrows, each shot seems to have incredible stopping power. And then the movie played up the alpha's absolutely massive dong way too much. Yes, the infected are nude. Certain camera angles will feature incidental dick. Maybe they'll even include incidentally massive dick. But camera shots made for the sole purpose of slapdick comedy is so out of place. And then there is the doctor. I love Ralph Fiennes and he predictably killed it in this movie, but his character makes no sense. You're telling me that Parliament and the Royal Armed Forces were wholly decimated, but a doctor operating in the open with few precautions beyond iodine is doing just dandy. Doctor beats infected beats RAF. And then there's Jimmy. Fucking Jimmy. If the second act diminished the threat posed by the infected, the third made a mockery of them. The finale of Jimmy's merry band of track suit power rangers back flipping over infected and dispatching them with all the stoicism of a 360 no-scope makes me wonder how the infected could ever have brough an international superpower to its knees. Even in the first act, there was a certain psychedelia hanging over certain scenes—namely when the first alpha was chasing the father-son duo over the partially submerged land bridge. The starscape, Aaron Taylor-Johnson's hot mic, and the phosphorescence beneath the alpha's every footfall. But the finale was the fever dream fueled by bad mushrooms.