28 Years Later

(Spoilers, duh)

So... I love 28 Days Later. It's one of my favorite movies, even listed on the home page.

I liked 28 Weeks Later as well, even though I didn't think it fully lived up to the first movie.

But... 28 Years Later was kinda... I dunno, it was just not what I was expecting I guess.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie by any means, but it's certainly a whole radically different experience when compared to the first two movies, which makes sense since it's covering quite a timespan between it and Weeks. But so much has changed that it almost feels disconnected from its origins.

The infected have changed a lot, since there are apparently variants among them now. Nothing like in Left 4 Dead, but more like Zombieland. There are "Alphas" now, which lead packs of infected, are all muscular, and take quite a bit of damage before dying (okay I guess it's like the Tank from Left 4 Dead...), and they rip the heads and spines off of things for... well it's weird, they kinda make effigies out of them I guess? Like the one ripped a deer's head off and displayed it in a tree for some reason? Not sure why exactly, but it seemed like it was maybe a warning for non-infected humans to stay out of its territory? I don't know.

There are also like these big, bloated, heavy ones that just crawl on the ground looking for food. They eat worms and stuff and just crawl around looking like giant babies. They're nasty, but they seem to barely be a danger to any survivors, unless they're sleeping.

The infected also eat stuff now, which... I mean I guess that makes sense, since they'd starve otherwise (like we saw at the end of Days).

Then there was the whole thing with the pillars of bones, which a lot of people (myself included) thought was going to have a much larger point in the plot than just... some guy wanting to make a weird graveyard.

Or the weird infected masks that we saw in the trailer a bunch. They only show up for a few scenes in the movie itself, and they hardly had anything to do with the plot. I guess they're just for the target practice dummies for the colony we see? Like most people, I thought that this was gonna be some weird cult that worshipped the rage virus, maybe related to the bone pillars. But, no, it was so insignificant.

There was also a bunch of weird inserted footage of medieval archers, soldiers marching during WWI (and other time periods probably), and I forget if there was anything else. Also the use of Boots in the movie was really just... not fitting in the slightest. I guess they only put it into the movie because using it in the trailer got a lot of hype, or so I've heard.

Ugh, the more I talk about this here, the more I just... dislike it. I know it's the first of a planned trilogy, but it makes me very nervous for the next two films. Apparently the second movie is not going to be directed by Danny Boyle, which... I mean, look at the sequel trilogy in Star Wars - multiple directors made for a disconnected plot over the trilogy, though it was also a lack of communication and Abrams' weird 'mystery box' methodology when it comes to writing plots (see Lost and the guys he left it to who had to figure out all the weird stuff themselves after he left to work on Star Trek).

But I'll still most likely see the second movie, see if it makes things clearer, and see if the third one even gets made, since its existence apparently relies on the reactions to the second film.

I'm not good at number ratings or anything, but like... I guess it's a 6/10 from me.