Director: Danny Boyle
Year: 2002
Country: United Kingdom/USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Waking up in an abandoned London, a man learns that a recently-escaped virus has spread throughout the population and left him with several lone survivors of the plague and tries to make their way to safety out of the city among the swarm of creatures trying to kill them.
Review:
There isn't a whole lot here that actually works. One of the film's few bright spots is the action-packed encounters with the creatures, which is usually a lot of fun with some nice brutal action throughout. Among the better attacks is the opening in the lab where the infected chimps get loose and attack the freedom fighters freeing them as the hysteria and chaos work nicely whilst the chimps go crazy in the middle of the room, while the other big scenes include the first encounter in the deserted city streets where his confusion after just waking up and seeing them comes off as a great chase scene before he gets saved and the brawling done in the different locations in their journey.
Likewise, the scenes at the end in the compound are all sorts of fun where the infected soldiers are loosened on the others resulting in some utterly fun and exciting moments here with the ravenous beings running loose in the complex while the raging thunderstorm carries on outside leaving this with a strong, violent and action-packed series of scenes. Along with the fine gore and make-up effects, it's about all this one has as there's quite a bit of stuff featured here that's not all that enjoyable.
One of the biggest issues here is that even though we get off to a rousing start, we don't get anything afterwards for quite a while which leaves a long gap between the action. This cuts into the pace of the film, as we get a great last half with an okay beginning, but that middle part is what really drags. There is way too much exploration of the city and talking amongst the people to really get into the film. We don't need four discussions about the same event at different times, which gets rather boring at times to sit through some of that as there is way too much redundant talking in the movie that throws the pace off.
Even worse, there is that dreaded quick-cut style of editing in the film that renders so much of the film barely able to figure out. This style of filming scenes is completely aggravating and doesn't make the scene look good. All we get is a sense of what is going on, as we're just guessing because the editing and camera movements are so erratic, and in the end, all it does is make the audience confused as to make is actually happening. The other flaw here is the film's tendency to really come up short on logical explanations for everything, leaving the origins or purpose of the contagion a mystery and having the release of it occurring as rather forgone afterthoughts. The soldier's purpose also makes no sense, and on the whole, this leaves far more questions than answers and really lowers this one as a whole.
Overview: **.5/5
Completely overrated and quite boring with just a few areas that do work, this was a rather troublesome effort that isn't the classic many felt it was. Those who are fine with its negative qualities, are hardcore zombie fanatics, or appreciate the creative crew will still want to give this a shot while most others out there should heed caution here.
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