28 Days Later Review

I’ve never seen one director with a filmography that has such varying dips in quality control. Danny Boyle isn’t an interesting auteur or someone that will ever be the absolute favourite of any articulate film fan, but he is good at what he does. His shot compositions are never interesting, especially not in his later career. Still, even in between the redundant Yesterday or the forgettable 127 Hours, Boyle has found the time to craft some films that have been adored by the public, presumably in the case of 28 Days Later this is a coupling of nostalgia, a memorable musical track and the kickstarting of Cillian Murphy’s career. 

By no means a bad film, but far from reaching any level of competency, 28 Days Later shuffles through a post-apocalyptic London, one completely overrun with zombies, who, unlike the pacing, waste no time at all in going after our leading character, Jim (Murphy). Waking up alone in the middle of an apocalypse is a somewhat intriguing storyline. An opening that is absolutely engaging, it’s when we spiral down into the substance and reasons for such a breakdown that it becomes venomously boring.

There’s no denying how dated 28 Days Later feels. It’s a movie of set pieces, awkwardly crunching them together in a film that shows its age rather poorly, with stiff and frankly ungainly scenes that do nothing more than propel us through a rather bleak, grey and boring zombie flick. Boyle has a knack for crafting films that don’t really go anywhere or do anything interesting, and there were times throughout my watch of 28 Days Later where I truly questioned what the point of it all was. We spend most of our time building up the inevitable set pieces of the genre, and the pay-off is nowhere close to satisfying.

Boyle’s camerawork is rather nice throughout though, and the empty streets of London will never not be an impressive accomplishment. But if the most impressive part of your film is that the streets are empty, then maybe there’s something lacking to the structure or experience. Murphy’s leading performance is solid, spending the majority of the film in a state of awe and acclimatisation. We learn as he learns, it’s a tried and tested way of letting the audience dive in at the deep end, and 28 Days Later certainly uses this to its advantage. A plentiful amount of tense moments, with enough downtime in-between to keep the frights high and the pacing rather solid.

It could’ve been a lot worse, 28 Days Later has glimpses of greatness to it, but nowhere close to the amount you would need for a competent apocalyptic horror. Murphy and Brendan Gleeson provide some solid moments of entertainment, but the rest of the supporting cast offer up the minimum required in this scenario. We’re thrown into a world we know nothing of, and we come out of the other end with just about the same amount of information. Boyle takes us through a story of happenstance nature, never pulling us one way or another. Something that attempts to feel natural in turn feels rather sluggish and dull instead.