28 Days Later . . . (2002)

Idea: Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus ravages the UK, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma with no knowledge of what has occurred. London is pillaged and deserted, but he eventually meets others survivors. He and Selena (Naomie Harris) meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns). Together, they set out to find the source of a radio broadcast promising sanctuary for survivors.

It's a rare day when I sit down and watch an entire horror movie. So, if you are in to this sort of thing, get happy.

No matter what anyone may think of the hundreds of flicks I've seen, I've got no stomach for gore. The first few moments of this movie are spent establishing how the population became infected, which involves a Primate Research Institute, some animal activists, and projectile vomited blood. Trust me when I tell you I've not given anything away there. It happens a lot. Pint upon pint of vomited blood.

So, when all this was going down, I didn't think I was going to make it. I got up off the couch, headed towards my pretty red DVD player, set on ejecting this crap on out of there and into the nearest mailbox.

But then I remembered that this movie came highly recommended from two sources: Emily and Strangelove. He may not be my professor anymore, but I couldn't let them both down, could I?

So I stuck it out. Besides the vomited blood, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland don't really focus on the gore, which made the experience easier on me.

To be honest with you, I don't know what the big deal is about either. I've never read The Beach, but the Boyle-helmed adaptation of Garland's novel didn't really do it for me. While it is horribly maligned, A Life Less Ordinary isn't the best thing I've ever seen. And Shallow Grave? No, never again.

As the days passed since viewing, I mentally listed the things I wanted to comment on. I've come to realize that I sort of saw two movies: one about zombies, and one of those "violence to end violence" movies that just happens to have involved zombies. To talk about both, there's likely going to be spoilers ahead. Deal with it.

I don't recommend the one about zombies. First off, if the fictional British government hadn't been so busy telegraphing their nefarious schemes to the public, maybe they wouldn't have had this problem in the first place. I mean, Primate Research Institute? Could you be more obvious? Of course the activists are going to bust up in there!

Idiots.

Mind you, I was long ago convinced via some PETA-like documentary that the British take animal cruelty far too seriously. These cows were being trucked to a slaughter house, and some deranged protestor commented that seeing their eyes through the little grates was reminiscent of the pictures of Jews being taken away to concentration camps during WWII. Honestly, that's what she said.

Okay, I realize that she's just one person and not representative of the whole, but you get the idea, right? Anyway, I thought about this when the activists were "freeing" the primates in question, and I couldn't stop thinking about what a moronic move that was. Document it and protest and get people jailed, sure. But just releasing chimps into their absolutely non-natural habitat of England without at least finding out what was going on? That's how you end up with your flesh eaten and your blood infected, blood-vomit lady.

I promise to get down off my soap box very soon.

The second part of the zombie movie that made absolutely no sense was how quickly Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) divulged his very own nefarious scheme: an evil breeding plan! I mean, he couldn't wait a day to gain these people's trust, or see when his chained zombie would die of starvation, or, I don't know, ask the ladies to be part of your breeding plan? Plus, if you don't keep track of who was with whom and when, you won't know who fathered which kid, and thus you will be unable to prevent possible incest in succeeding generations. Then you end up with a bunch of people who look like Joseph Fiennes.

Now onto the other movie, the much better one. Violence to end violence movies are a difficult breed. When done well, they are exceptional, thoughtful, and thought-provoking pieces like Unforgiven. When they're not, they come off as beautiful but flawed sermonizing like Road to Perdition.The latter and this film may have come out in the same year, but this one hit the box office a good two weeks earlier. It's the better of two, I can tell you that.

While I'm not quite yet sold on Murphy as an actor, Jim's transformation during the movie was compelling and realistic. At first he cannot bring himself to defend himself against zombies who want to eat his flesh (at least not without a heaping helping of remorse afterwards), but little by little he finds enough resolve to kill (or at least let die) an entire troop of living men for trying to hurt the only people he feels connected to. Between Murphy, Boyle, and Garland, they give Jim enough nuance to make this metamorphisis both understandable and unsettling, without ever letting it dehumanize their lead.

Well played, boys.

As for the other players, Gleeson needs to stop giving me the impression that he's in every movie, Harris and Burns rock it pretty hard, and Eccleston hereby graduates from being known to me as "Poor man's Ralph Fiennes" to being his very own person. He's scary, he's endearing, he's everywhere, and I didn't even know.

Besides, Ralph Fiennes kind of sucks at being Ralph Fiennes sometimes, doesn't he? Let's give Eccelston some more English Patient-y roles, and let him make the ladies swoon, shall we?

A million words (give or take) later, and I still haven't gotten to the best part of either film. This movie contains the most inventive, beautiful, haunting, and despair filled cinematography I have ever seen. Ever. If Anthony Dod Mantle isn't rolling in it, I'll never understand why. I can't even begin to describe the way he perfectly frames every single shot. At first I thought he was over doing it with the long/tracking shots of Jim wandering through an abandoned London, but he later revealed that it was all part of a larger plan as he slowly switched to tighter and tighter close-ups while Jim gained control over his situation.

Here's to you, Mantle. You exist unparalleled in my mind.

I'd like to give these two movies two different grades, yet they are one and the same. Garland and Boyle may have decided to ignore glaring plot holes and moronic plot contrivances, but I cannot. B

Back to the real business of blogging: find something funnier than you, and linking to it. Enjoy!