Although the film 28 Days Later (the 2002 precursor to 28 Weeks Later) may have borrowed a lot from the zombie cult classic Last Man On Earth with Vincent Price, it was brilliant fun.  28 Days Later held its audience captive with completely imaginative, beautiful and creative cinematography and terrific acting from some relatively unknown actors. Its portrayal of a super rabies-style virus that turns its hosts into red-eyed, blood feasting fiends had audiences on the edge of their seats. 28 Weeks Later gets off to a good start, with US lead NATO forces entering England to reestablish the population after the complete destruction of England.  The last of the infected have since died off with the absence of victims to feed upon.  

A woman is soon discovered, who carries the virus but is immune to the symptoms, giving hope to the possibility of a vaccine or a cure.  But all hell breaks loose when her husband sneaks into quarantine to give her a kiss. The virus quickly takes him over through her saliva and spreads like wildfire to the panicked and trapped masses, just as it did before. 

What seemed like a good start to the film quickly deteriorates into a simple game of cat and mouse.  The characters are not well developed and in some cases, as when they descend into the darkened tunnels of the Tube, you sometimes lose track of who’s who.  The film comes across as being poorly written, hastily put together, and the ending leaves you with the impression that they ran out of money along the way and had to come up with an ending on the spot. 

I was reminded here of films like the American version of The Ring, a wonderful and terrifying film, but with a real clunker of a sequel.  28 Weeks Later isn’t terrible, but when held to the standard of its predecessor it simply doesn’t measure up.