28 Weeks Later (Blu-ray)

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After the unexpected success of "28 Days Later," Danny Boyle found himself busy with the science-fiction film "Sunshine," but wanted to give audiences another dose of the Rage infested world he created. Putting on his Executive Producer cap, Boyle hired Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to take over the helm of his sequel and with a larger budget, bigger star power and an idea in mind, "28 Weeks Later" began filming. Boyle would serve as second unit director for a few scenes to keep involved with the project, but handed the reins over to a completely different set of talent from the first film. "28 Days Later" found positive reviews from critics and audiences alike and there was some question as to whether or not the sequel could live up to the standards set by the original film. Although it didn´t perform as well as hoped in the box office, "28 Weeks Later" earned mostly positive reviews and proved to be an intelligent and entertaining follow-up to the original and set the stage for the eventual "28 Months Later."

The sequel begins with a scene that takes place just after the initial outbreak of Rage. Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are holding refuge in an old farmhouse with a few other folk. They have the house boarded up and are barely surviving in darkness and with limited supplies. Times are rough and the Rage infection has all of England in turmoil. Don and Alice are happy that each other has survived the outbreak. Their relative tranquility is brought crashing down one day when a young boy comes pounding on the door of their farmhouse. He is running for his life from a large number of the Infected. After some hesitation in letting the boy in, Alice allows the boy entry. This brings their safety to an end when the Infected take notice and overwhelm the small house. Everyone in the house is attacked and killed, with the exception of Don. Leaving his wife behind, Don cowardly runs towards a boat for safety and becomes the sole survivor.

Twenty eight weeks later, the United States military has cordoned a section of London off and cleaned the area out of bodies and possible infection. It has been deemed safe for a number of the population to return. Don has his son and daughter Andy (Macintosh Muggleton) and Tammy (Imogen Poots) brought to the safe ´Sector One´ part of London. It has been a long time since Don has been reunited with his children and he tells them how he saw their mother died and that he couldn´t do anything to help them. They are relieved to finally be with their father and are the first children allowed back into Great Britain after the Rage epidemic. The children are saddened because of the loss of their mother, but Andy feels he will soon forget what his mother had looked like.

Various professions of the United States military are present to oversee the repopulation of England and to insure their safety against a possible reoccurrence of the Rage virus. A young doctor, Major Scarlett Ross (Rose Byrne) is an expert on the Rage virus and checks blood samples for traces of the virus. She is very surprised and less than happy about the reintroduction of children, but continues to do her job. Sergeant Doyle (Jeremy Renner) is an Army sniper and one of many such snipers that patrols London from the heights of London´s skyline and keeps a constant lookout for any unusual behavior or a person that may become Infected. Ross´s job is to monitor the health of everybody out there and hopefully find a way to immunize against the Rage virus. She is in the business of saving lives. Doyle, on the hand, has the responsibility to take lives if necessary and use whatever force is necessary to keep an instance of Rage from spreading.

It doesn´t take long for Andy and Tammy to go against regulations of Sector One and travel outside of the contained safe zone. Andy wants to collect a photograph of his mother and they travel across the river to their old home to find one. They find far more than they bargain for when Alice turns up in bad health, but alive. The house was in a ransacked condition, but Alice was found hiding on the second floor. Unfortunately for the children, they were spotted crossing the bridge and the military is fully armed and waiting outside. They take Alice back to quarantine and separate her from her children. There, she meets up with Major Ross and the attractive young doctor tells Alice that she has to be strapped down and tested for her and everybody else´s safety.

As it turns out, Alice was bitten during the attack on the small cottage. However, she has immunity to the Rage virus and has been carrying it around in her blood stream without falling prey to its effects. Scarlett Ross believes that Alice is the key to finding a possible cure to the virus and has her and the children quarantined. Startled at the news that his wife is still alive, Don visits Alice to apologize and seek forgiveness from his wife for leaving her behind. He also visits his children who are greatly angered at the discovery that their father lied to them. When he visits Alice, he kisses her on the lips; a fatal mistake. Don quickly succumbs to the Rage virus and begins to tear Alice apart with his bare hands and teeth. He breaks out of the quarantine room and into the general populace.

After all of the steps taken to contain the deadly Rage virus, a simple kiss is now the seed to another infection. Within minutes, more and more reintroduced citizens become infected by Rage. Mass hysteria breaks out. The snipers are told to fire only at the Infected, but with the mayhem and quick spread of the virus they begin to fire at everybody in an attempt to regain control. Scarlett sends out an urgent plea to find and protect young Andy, as he may be the only hope to stop Rage and cure those infected. It doesn´t take long before the military decides it is best to simply eliminate everybody in an effort to keep Rage contained. Through several turn of events, Scarlett finds Andy and Tammy. She also finds a helpful Doyle who has decided that he couldn´t shoot the boy and will now use his skills and marksmanship to help Scarlett and the children reach safety. His hopeful path out of the quarantined zone will be through the help of his helicopter pilot friend Flynn (Harold Perrineau). However, Flynn refuses to take anybody other than Doyle to safety and this creates a bit of a problem as the military is ready to napalm the entire area to kill the infection.

I could go on and ruin the plot, which typically happens in most reviews with a plot summary. However, part of the allure of "28 Weeks Later" is the moments between the break out of Rage and the plight of the foursome looking for escape from the quarantined zone. Once Rage is reintroduced to the population, "28 Weeks Later" becomes one hell of a thrill ride. It doesn´t slow down much and just produces moment after moment of horrifyingly good fun. The first film in the series used feelings of isolation to help build tension and slowed down the pace with great effectiveness. "28 Weeks Later" takes a different approach and tries to remain as "in your face" as possible for much of its running time. It is a more exciting and action-filled film than "28 Days Later," and reminds me of the transformation taken by "Aliens" after the original "Alien." It doesn´t have the insane pacing of "Aliens," as no film may ever eclipse that for adrenaline pumping fun, but "28 Weeks Later" took a similar approach to its storytelling.

There has been some voices in the winds that look at "28 Weeks Later" as being social commentary on the American invasion of Iraq. The film contains an American military presence in command of civilians in a nation where a savage war (Rage infestation in this case) has occurred. The American military is shown to be brutal and cold killers and has little issue with killing women and children to stop a potential threat from escalating. My opinion is that any film that shows the United States military in less than perfect light will be considered a voice about the current situation in Iraq. Yes, the film does show the Army as a police force. Yes, the Army kills innocent civilians. I´m a former veteran of the United States Army Infantry and I understand what is going on overseas and I also enjoy this film. There may be a hint of commentary by the director, but I honestly do not see it detracting from the story. If you think back a couple hundred years, the British military had a forceful governing control over our lands. We called that the Revolutionary War. Maybe the filmmakers intended on making a point by having us governing Britain by gun. Maybe not. In my opinion, this is a film and it is entertainment. I´ll just leave it at that.