Still, if it looks like a zombie movie, and acts like a zombie movie, it's probably a zombie movie, hair-splitting aside. Director Danny Boyle's 2002 hit about an outbreak of the Rage Virus in Great Britain essentially breathed new life into the zombie genre, despite not really being a zombie movie, as its infected weren't actually the reanimated dead. But it's still a smart, funny and nightmarish flick which rises far above its genre.28 Days Later protagonist Jim ( Cillian Murphy) didn't return for the sequel, but official tie-in material reveals what happened to the character. At this point, like he seems to do on his other movies, Boyle hits the button marked "It all goes a bit mad" which diminishes the thoughtful first two acts. Only, of course, all is not what it seems with Christopher Eccelstone's army major, a commander of a squad which has set up a fortress in a country estate. They find cabbie Frank (Gleeson) and teenage daughter Hannah and pile into his taxi, having heard a promise of salvation in the north. irradiated." Jim finds the resilient Selina (Harris), who tells him it's when it comes to the zombies (who sure move faster than they did in the old days) it's a case of kill or be killed. When the survivors raid a supermarket one smacks his lips over the only fruit which hasn't gone off: "Mmm. It also has some fun along the way at the expense of the anti-science brigade - the virus is unleashed by animal rights protesters breaking into a lab to free the chimpanzee test animals. Considering the disease's effects, a particularly local interpretation could substitute "rage" for the P epidemic. But it could be read as an allegory of any border-crossing virus-of-the-month. It reminds at times of the great 70s British television drama Survivors, even if it does end up with a messy gore-fest of a finale. It is also genuinely creepy and has many a moment which display a palpable sense of humanity - a scene when Jim finds what has become of his family is genuinely touching. No, it is because its story about a rampant virus called "rage" - which turns its victims into rabid automaton killers within seconds of contraction - asks questions first, shoots later.
It is an apocalyptic sci-fi film of British sensibility - and not just because its hand-held digital camerawork makes it look budget-conscious.
But what is apparent from those early scenes is that this isn't just another zombie-flick. The man, Jim (Murphy), trudges out from his abandoned hospital room into a London dawn where it appears everybody has left town, his "hellos" echoing through the famous streets. Nor the first film which, a few minutes later, gazes down on a naked bloke lying in bed waking to find he seems to be the last man alive (see Geoff Murphy's The Quiet Earth). By RUSSELL BAILLIE (Herald rating: * * * *) It's not the first zombie film to start with the attack of a mad primate (see Peter Jackson's Brain Dead, among others).
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