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Just when it seemed zombie movies had been done to death, a stylish, intelligent jolt from director Danny Boyle springs the sub-genre back to life. 28 Days Later, based on Alex Garland's novel, employs the allegorical underpinnings of all the best zombie shockers. After an opening scene in which some misguided animal rights activists spring a dangerously infected primate from his lab cage, Boyle jumps four weeks ahead. A London bike messenger named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakes from a coma to discover the city is virtually deserted, and he soon joins a few other survivors in a desperate fight against the "infected" -- people overtaken with a contagious, uncontrollable rage defined only by an imperative to infect. With due homage to George Romero's zombie classics, Boyle chooses to re-imagine rather than reinvent the genre: The infected, for instance, move with furious speed -- in stark contrast to Romero's lumbering undead. Inevitably, the story boils down to the genre's essential Darwinian mechanics, pitting the humane, thoughtful, and victimized against not only the infected but also the tough guys with big guns. Produced in the shadow of September 11, 2001 and released at the height of the world's SARS worries, the film inadvertently became very much a movie of its moment. Nonetheless, with its thoughtful perspective, gorgeous digital cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle, and effective genre trappings, 28 Days Later should stand the test of time. That is, it's so good it won't die. Tony Nigro

All Movie Guide

Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows. It's soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity -- or has the deadly "rage" virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet? Jason Buchanan

Product Details

• UPC: 024543097709
• Source: 20TH CENTURY FOX
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Pan & Scan
• Sound: Dolby Digital
• Editions: Subtitled, Dubbed
• Time: 1:53:00
• Sales Rank: 21,613

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• 28 Days Later / the Omen
• 28 Weeks Later & 28 Days Later (2pc) / (Ws 2pk)

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