28 Weeks Later (18)

There's nothing like a dose of blood-soaked zombie horror to turn a girl aglow with nostalgia. In this case, the sprint down memory lane - everything in this terrific sequel to 28 Days Later takes place at breakneck speed - is prompted by the glimpse of a poster for Jaws in a child's bedroom. Oh for the days when the most a body had to fear was being a shark's elevenses.

The object of terror in Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's film is not a big fish, bird flu or al Qaeda but their sci-fi equivalent, the "rage virus". Having laid waste to Britain in 28 Days Later, the disease - which turns a victim into a cross between Dracula, the Tasmanian devil and a PMT sufferer - is meant to have been eradicated, largely by letting the infected devour each other.

It's now seven months on and an American-led Nato force has set up camp on London's Isle of Dogs. Blighty is being repopulated, and could soon be open again for business.

US marines patrolling the streets of London, snipers on the rooftops, and a Baghdad-style "green zone" in which survivors and the military reside: like the dystopian Britain in last year's Children of Men, Fresnadillo's post-apocalyptic UK is not beyond our ken. Seeing the thin veneer of civilisation so easily cracked is what lifts the hairs on the back of the neck. Even the litter-strewn streets where dogs and rats feast don't look as if they put the production crew to too much trouble. These could be any lanes in contemporary Britain, give or take a few chip wrappers.

Emptying central London of people and traffic, however: now, that did take work. It's an image lifted from Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later - one of several, including the bridge-crossing scene - and it's still a great one. You know a film has arrived as a franchise when it acquires its own trademark visuals. Foremost among these in the 28 series is the chase sequence, and Fresnadillo - previously the director of only one feature, Intacto - opens with a belter.

Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are living with other survivors in a barricaded cottage. Their children have been shipped to safety, and if Don and Alice can hold on a bit longer, the last of the zombies roaming the countryside will have died. The arrival of a child, with a pack of human hounds in pursuit, puts paid to that plan. Amid the chaos, the last a fleeing Don sees of his wife is a face at the window.

It's a superb prologue, bursting with potential - and it might also lead to some interesting conversations on the way home. Do you love the light of your life enough to stick around and save them from the living dead? (Lie, you crazy fool. Lie.) Don is reunited with children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (the superbly monikered Mackintosh Muggleton) and happy days are here again for, oh, all of three minutes. Surprise, surprise: as in Jaws, it really wasn't safe to go back in the water. A team of four writers replaced Alex Garland, the story's creator, on the sequel; instead of embellishing the initial concept, they've cleverly stripped the plot to its essentials - virus versus humans in a fight for survival - and let the action do the talking.

And how it roars. Boyle's 2002 original had a low-tech, hand-knitted look; in 28 Weeks Later the cash has been splashed, giving the enterprise more of a blockbuster feel. There are several spectacular sequences, including an Apocalypse Now-inspired firebombing of London and a fight between a helicopter and a field full of zombies. All in, Fresnadillo gets the job done in just 99 minutes - practically trailer length compared to most movies - and they pass in a relentlessly bleak frenzy.

Lady Penelope lookalike Poots puts in a haunting performance as the girl who turns into a strong young woman over the course of a day, and Carlyle, as ever, sucks the marrow out of his role as a less-than- perfect father. Every other character played by the new cast is strictly stereotypical: Rose Byrne's resourceful medic and Jeremy Renner's sharp shooter could have been sketched on the back of a stamp. Here's the thing, though. If you're looking for subtle drama with finely drawn characters spouting meaningful dialogue, this film is not for you. But if you want a fantastic action movie and can stomach the sight of people vomiting blood and tearing the flesh from each other, head for the multiplex now.

The holy trinity of modern British sci-fi/ horror - Alex Garland, director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald - were producers on this project, and they chose well in handing it to Fresnadillo. He's given them, and us, a real run for the money.

Not so much a sequel, more a do-over, this pointless horror film does little except remind you just how talented Danny Boyle is as a film maker. In the original 28 Days Later, Boyle and writer Alex Garland took a dormant movie genre and breathed new life into it. Suddenly zombie movies were cool again and Boyle’s exciting gritty style using digital video cameras brought a slim story vibrantly to life.

This time round it’s more of the same but without Boyle’s visual sense it plays out like an extremely gory video game that substitutes being constantly in your face for any sense of pacing or tension.

The film begins with an attack in the original outbreak of the Rage virus which sees Robert Carlyle flee from the zombies leaving his wife to be eaten and turned into a monster herself.

Twenty eight weeks later courtesy of the US Army, reconstruction has begun and Britain - or at least part of London - is being repopulated, Carlyle who is now a useful member of the new civil administration is reunited with his kids. They are resigned to leaving their new lives behind an American security cordon so impressive that two kids breach it at will. Honestly, if they can’t protect the Docklands no wonder they’re in trouble in Iraq.

Thanks to Carlyle’s kids the Rage virus breaks out in the secure area and the US Army decides to kill everyone, infected or otherwise.

But, medical officer Rose Byrne believes one of the kids may have the key to conquering the virus - if only they can get them out of the secure area and out to safety.

Like Shaun of the Dead without the laughs, 28 Weeks later plays like a very generic zombie movie. It owes much of its inspiration to Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead, and other than a stomach churning gore factor to keep the fans happy it doesn’t have a lot going for it.

The great zombie movies of George Romero were in fact political allegories, they are also quite funny in their own way. This is neither; it’s like being trapped inside an 18 certificate video game for an hour and three quarters.

The cast is pretty poor. The heroine Imogen Poots has a range of expression that goes from vacant to confused and back again and even Carlyle is given next to nothing to do.

And the casting of vaguely recognisable American actors - Harold Perrineau from Lost and Jeremy Renner from S.W.A.T - is just shameless pandering to the US audience.

©The Evening Times