"What do you mean there's no government? There's always a government, they're in a bunker or a plane somewhere!"
28 Days Later... is an interesting yet flawed film, which purports to be a horror film but instead mutates into a commentary on social values and life in contemporary Britain. A horrific plague of sorts is unleashed when animal rights activists free a group of monkeys infected with "rage" onto the public. This "rage" is contagious through blood exchanges, soon turning Britain into a wasteland. 28 days later, a young man (Jim) wakes up in a hospital room, having been unconscious since before the outbreak. He makes his way through now-deserted London, and is discovered by two other survivors, Selena and Mark. They fill him in on the particulars of what's happened to society the previous two fortnights, and then steel him to the fact that everyone is dead, and he better get over it, now. This group manages to find a pair of other survivors, and eventually attempts to travel to a military outpost north of Manchester, where a faint radio broadcast promises "salvation".
The entire plot is far too involved and convoluted to recount here, but the group (most of it, anyway), makes it to the military facility, which is run by Major Henry West (frequent Boyle star Christopher Eccleston). The group's hope for a return to something approaching normal society are rendered problematic by the fact that, in the absence of any overarching political, societal, or bureaucratic structures, the military arm will tend to revert to a more primitive notion of societal values.
The issues raised in 28 Days Later... are, needless to say, quite disturbing. At its basest level this is a film about what happens to people when societal structures collapse, a la Wiliiam Golding's The Lord of the Flies. As such, it in many ways covers the same ground as Boyle's debut feature, Shallow Grave, but on a much larger canvas. When in a fight for survival, is it practical to form alliances with others, or can you only rely on ones self? Are colleagues' deficiencies in some areas counterbalanced by strengths in others? And most importantly, what is the nature of human society at its basest level? Are we or are we not advanced from other primates, or will we ultimately, when faced with a bitter struggle for survival, revert to more animalistic behaviors?
Needless to say, since I was led to believe that 28 Days Later... was nothing more than a zombie movie, the fact that it tried to wrestle with such issues at all was a pleasant surprise. That it was not a complete success is quite forgivable, in light of the fast-paced plot, uniformly good acting, and interesting visuals.
3/5
