Just saw 28 Days Later, and I have a question...

[St. Jarvitude]

As far as I understand it, there is either a government experiment or some sort of corporate experiment to study "rage" or something else - a Rainbow Six type thing. Obviously animal rights activists (who I believe this movie portrayed rather unrealistically - if I were breaking into a place to free lab animals, I would probably run like fuckin Speedy Gonzalez if a scientist confronted me) end up unleashing this virus upon the world population by letting one chimp out. This chimp bites the "liberator" (kind of like Iraq, eh?) and thus the first infected person infects the rest of the people in the room.

Here's where I see the flaw. Earlier, the scientist reported a break-in and a breach of security. If I had set up the lab for these cruel experiments, I would have developed some sort of "lock down" procedure and a way to isolate and quarantine the area. If this were not a permanent effect, certainly I would make it something that could happen upon report of a "security breach." At least make a sealed, locked door into the lab that could only be opened from inside or outside with a special key code, to prevent any people from leaving the room in case of an infection.

Obviously, this is not the case in this laboratory - though admittedly, the viewer knows nothing about the procedures at the lab and someone may have inadvertently "opened the floodgates" leading from the infected lab.

Is this just a case of general corporate/government idiocy? Is this whole movie really a knock on the idiocy and carelessness of government?

Really, this is more of an observation than a question, I guess. :shrug:

[Keebs]

1. I didn't really

care for any of the movie. I also just saw this movie the other day. I guess I was okay with it until the part where the soldiers turned out to be psycho wacked-out perverts. I just didn't see the point in any of the movie and it pissed me off more than it made me think.

I liked The Stand a lot more. It was much more frightening and thought provoking.

[SheilaT]

2. It's an example of

Hollywood not letting actual scientific fact get in the way of a good story. They do it all the time. The swiftness of global climate change, and the supposed mechanism for it, is simply impossible as portrayed in "The Day After Tomorrow". But most people don't know enough about any of these things to care very much.

I see it all the time where it concerns things I know real well. As a former airline employee, I constantly see things in movies that simply aren't the way they would or could in real life flights.

But back to your original question. Even if there hadn't been adequate security in the movie "28 Days Later", the idea that people could be infected THAT rapidly is ludicrous.

[Elidor]

3. The problem is...

With people like you in charge of security, there is no movie. It takes idiocy to make a plot like this.

I'm also one of the very few zombie-movie fans who disliked it, though the cinematography is excellent in places.

[St. Jarvitude]

5. I tend to agree with you

The movie had some nice cinematography in it - wasn't it nominated for an Oscar for that? Other than that, though, from a purely theatric standpoint, the movie was pretty disappointing.

However, despite all of that, for some reason, I really liked this film. I don't know why.

I think I may be overreacting a bit to this movie. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about what I would do if I had to live on my own in an anarchy with no central government and having to depend on strangers for my survival. Maybe this movie just set something off that connected with what I'm thinking right now and that's the only reason I like the movie so much.

One other thing I can't tell is the political message of this film. Is the outbreak the fault of the government for setting up such a fucking STUPID and extremely reckless experiment? Or is it the fault of the activists for releasing the chimps? Or is there no political message at all (it is a FOX movie, after all :eyes:)?

[Donkeyboy75]

11. I like it too, even though it's cheesy.

When Frank is shot by the army pervs, his daughter then goes "Daddy?"
Purely silly.

But I'm a big fan of apocalyptic films. There are tons of flaws in the movie in addition to what has been posted on the board. But it's supposed to be fun, not serious.

BTW, does anyone know where all of those bodies came from when the soldiers are going to execute the main character and the army sargeant? Were they the original inhabitants of the estate? :shrug:

[Sapphocrat]

6. Major zombie fan here...

And it took me until a few days after I walked out of the theatre to decide whether I actually liked it or not. I finally decided that there were a lot of things I would have done differently,* but ultimately, I liked it. Any movie that stays in your head for a few days is worth seeing again.

* For instance, end-of-the-world movies almost never spend enough time on all the cool stuff a small handful of survivors would do in a big, empty city. "The Omega Man" probably wins, especially with the scene of Heston watching "Woodstock" for the umpteenth time. "Night of the Comet" is a GREAT, fun movie, and explores some of the possibilities, but I've always thought the endless possibilities an empty L.A. would have to offer just aren't exploited to, like, the max, y'know?

My prize for utilization of a single location in the What I Would Do If Left to My Own Devices After an Apocalypse category goes to the original "Dawn of the Dead."

[TreasonousBastard]

12. "Night of the Comet," eh...

didn't know anyone else saw that.

It was a kid's movie, but you're right, it showed some of the possibilities when you're the last people on earth-- and had a lot of fun doing it while still having that massive loneliness kind of nagging in the background.

Can't imagine how they'd explore ALL the possibilities being in an empty LA, though. Movies are only a couple of hours long.

They did "The Andromeda Strain" and "The Stand." Both were OK, but I liked the books better. The apocalypse movie I REALLY want to see is "Lucifer's Hammer." That was one hell of a read, and if they ever do the movie right, it will be killer.

[Imperialism Inc.]

10. Too true.

I took my son to see "The Core" , which is about something going wrong at the core of the Earth and they need to "restart" it. The one guy just finished explaining how we have no way to actually get to the center of the Earth. The other scientist says "What if we did have a way?" (with a smirk that means he knows of some top secret way to do it). I blurted out, "Well then we've got us a movie!" and the whole place started laughing.

I have a bad habit of that. After the preview for The Butterfly Effect, starring Ashton Kutcher, faded to black, I couldn't help but blurt out his line from Dude Where's My Car... "Stupid Llamas".

[Sapphocrat]

4. You're thinking about it too much. :)

It's just a fun post-apocalyptic horror show. A plausible explanation for flesh-eating zombies would have slogged down "Night of the Living Dead" -- and taken the focus off the "ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances" survival aspect.

Of course, it's not lost on me that everybody who was in charge before (i.e., the lab guys) and everybody who is in charge after (i.e., the soldiers) are either incompetent, or just plain evil.

But Sheila's got it -- it's a matter of not letting logic get in the way of a good movie.

[foreigncorrespondent]

7. Ya know...

..I saw this movie at the flicks with Sapph when it first came out. Then I saw it about a month ago when we got it from Blockbuster during a weekend when my sister was visiting. And after sitting through it twice I can honestly say, it was the biggest pile of Zombie crap I have ever witnessed!

Give me Night of the Comet over 28 Days Later any day!

[Sapphocrat]

8. ROFL...

Oh well, so we have our differences. As long as you always dig disaster movies, we'll make it! LOL

[foreigncorrespondent]

13. Oh you KNOW...

...I will always dig on the disaster flicks, even the bad ones. ;)

[Tom Kitten]

9. I saw it

I was disappointed, it wasn't a very well thought out movie. More of a rehash of the Romero "Dead" trilogy, and a little bit of "Day of the Triffids" and "The Eighth Monkey" thrown in... I'm sure you could toss in a few other mass extinction of humanity movies that this film derived from...
The really fast zombies were I believe one of the main selling points of this film...But still they just seem to attack one at a time and can get blown away just as easily as slow moving zombies!

[Guy_Montag]

14. Try "Dog Soldiers"

It's a cross between Platoon & An American Werewolf in London.

Enough comedy to make it lighthearteed, enough shooty bits to keep the action going, & plenty of gore. It's not going to win any prizes, but for mindless entertainment it's one of the best films I've seen.