Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakes from a coma in a London that appears deserted. It's not actually deserted, but most of the inhabitants are crazed, homicidal maniacs (infected by rage, which essentially makes them fast zombies.) Jim is saved by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark, though Mark doesn't last long, and Selena makes it clear she's not all that worried if Jim does, either. Selena and Jim spot Christmas lights flickering from an apartment balcony and meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). Frank wants to travel to the source of an Army broadcast claiming there's a cure for the infection and can provide safety. Frank was waiting until there were others to go with them, to look after Hannah if something happens to him.
Well, something happens, leaving Jim, Selena and Hannah in the care of Major West (Christopher Eccleston.) His cure is not quite what they hoped, and the safety only extends so far, that with conditions. He's trying to keep his men going by promising them women, the radio broadcast the lure. This does not end well for him or the soldiers.
Alex and I were going to see this in theaters, but we didn't check show times beforehand, so it was going to be over an hour wait. We ended up watching Terminator 3 instead. What a horrible mistake. T3 isn't the worst movie Alex and I watched in theaters together - I'd award that honor to Saw, Drillbit Taylor, or the 2nd Fantastic Four movie - but relative to what we could have been watching, it's pretty shitty.
The quote that feels like it sums the movie up is when they're preparing to drive through the tunnel to reach the broadcast and Jim says, 'This is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.'
That's what the movie feels like: characters making bad decisions that are really obviously bad decisions (though bad for who varies), because they can't think of a better one. Jim being determined to try and cross a city he now knows is full of insane hordes that will tear him to shreds if they catch him, on the off-chance his parents made it. Selena and Mark knowing it's a bad idea, and Jim is a risk to them because he hasn't had time to adjust to the new reality, and going anyway. Frank taking a chance on a broadcast promising sanctuary, even though it's clearly a recording set on repeat. The animal rights' folks at the beginning, if for no other reason than opening the door of a cage on a wild animal you've been told is infected with something, without wearing protective gear, is stupid. The researchers, for trying to infect something with "rage" to understand it. Major West keeping Mailer, one his soldiers that's now infected, around on a chain to "learn" about the infected, meaning he's let the threat to them inside the building.
(Considering it was Jones' getting ready to commit suicide that convinced West his men needed women in the first place, which led to Jim, Selena and Hannah arriving, you could argue West stopping Jones from killing himself was a shit idea. Probably a really obviously shit idea, considering Jones fucks up everything he's supposed to do in the entire movie, from cooking the celebratory meal with bad eggs, to botching the execution of Jim and Sgt. Farrell, to spraying all his bullets into the ceiling like an idiot while one of his squadmates is getting infected by Mailer.)
There are certain shots that stick with me, and with 28 Days Later, it's always been during the scene where Jim lures Major West and one of his soldiers to the barricade. They're searching in the rain, split up, and as the soldier walks through behind a lorry, the camera pans right over Jim in the foreground, staring at us with eyes that are cloudy, unfocused and glazed over. Blurring the line between the proper "infected", and regular old humans who, as West noted, having been killing each other in large numbers for pretty much as long as there were enough humans to kill large numbers of them.
When Jim tried to intervene with one of the soldiers getting grabby with Selena, he did so in a rather halfway manner. Just trying to push the guy back a bit, and quickly ended up with his face smushed into the floor. When he returns, there's no half-measures or talking. He sets Mailer loose as a distraction, sticks Jones with a bayonet the same way the other soldier intended for Farrell. And when he catches up to that guy and Selena, he bumrushes him, slamming his head against the bricks while snarling inarticulately before throwing him to the ground and gouging his eyes out (which is another of those shots that sticks with me, Cillian Murphy with the cords in his neck sticking out as he buries his thumbs in the guy's sockets.) The only difference between Jim and Mailer in that moment (besides Jim not puking blood on the guy) is Jim being more coordinated in his violence. The infected seem to flail and swipe a lot, but there's no concrete plan of attack for their victims.
(There's also the symmetry of Jim dropping in through the ceiling, just like one of the infected came in through a skylight during the attack at Jim's parents' home. That was Jim's first real introduction to the violence of this new world. Jim didn't do anything to fight back then, but he's an animal now.)
(It's a nice touch when the infected have gestures or expressions they might have used before. When we're first introduced to Mailer, after West leaves, Mailer is on the ground, but he reaches towards Jim, as though asking for helping getting up. Is that some vestige of the old Mailer, or the virus co-opting the mannerisms?)
But there were a lot of things I hadn't noticed on until I rewatched the movie last week in preparation for this post. First and foremost, that West and his men must have been at the barricade before Frank got infected, if they could be so well hidden in the woods and have vantage points from above already. They waited for an excuse to get rid of the one they figured was the biggest roadblock to their plans for Selena and Hannah. Beyond that, the way the soldiers do doughnuts in the driveway with Frank's taxi while Hannah's mourning her dad. How, when West lays out his scheme to Jim, he offers him some of the liquor Frank grabbed during their grocery shopping. Frank was no doubt saving it for a celebration, for when they found safety and hope. West has simply co-opted it for his own purpose, to make the crap he's decided is acceptable go down a little smoother. The same way he took Frank's hope of safety for him and his daughter, and twisted it into what would be a nightmare for Hannah, if it goes as West plans.
Murphy does a good job with Jim, moving from befuddled to terrified to optimistic to sarcastic to ruthless, although the shift in him after nearly being executed is a bit abrupt. He's running for his life, then he falls and while staring at the sky, realizes Farrell was right about the rest of the world going about its business while England burns. From then on, he's like Rambo.
Naomie Harris is excellent, with her outwardly cynical air, but still showing it's only skin deep. For as caustic as she can be, asking Jim if he wants the two of them to just fall in love and fuck, she never actually abandons him. Maybe because she figures you need someone to watch your back, and he's all that's available, but when Jim asks if she's got a can of Tango, she actually looks through her pack, rather then tell him "No" and give him one of the other cans. After the soldiers find them, she's not worried about Hannah because of the soldiers, she's worried about Hannah because the girl just lost her dad, and Selena doesn't want her to have suffered that loss. And, of course, when confronted with a Jim who seems like he's infected, Selena hesitates, after she told him she wouldn't.
But really, that's probably because the movie is about not abandoning the better parts of human nature, or humans being social creatures, just because things looks bad. Selena does need people, even if she tries to frame it in terms of simple survival. Jim, Mark, Frank, they all needed people. Hannah needs someone, especially once her father's gone. Someone who will try to look out for her, whether by fighting for her, or trying to give her enough pills she can endure what the soldiers have planned.
Even Major West is enacting his awful plan because he doesn't want to be alone, and his men are all he's got. Maybe it's a sense of responsibility to those under his command, but that didn't stop him from having his sergeant executed when the man objected. Ultimately, those soldiers are his family, so he tries to hold together the ones he can, even Jones, who's a useless twit, and Mailer, who's a time bomb. Everyone else is fuel for the fire to keep his family warm. Frank, Selena, Hannah, Jim, they're trying to find other people to band together with. Major West is looking for people - resources, really - to exploit.
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