Not a bad film but not a masterpiece either. The storyline is interesting along the lines of your usual zombie movie. But I found the characters a bit formulaic and the hint of a love story between the 2 young lead characters is not credible, somehow: there seems to be no chemistry between them. Overall, you will like it if you like that kind of film. But the raving reviews it got when it came out are over the top in my view: it is fairly good, not superb.
This is one of director Danny Boyle's best films. A very clever British post- apocalyptic horror film that takes the somewhat tired and clichéd zombie sub genre and injects it with an aesthetic visual imagery that is very impressive, and has a story, written by Alex Garland, that taps into the modern day fear of disease rather than the old fears of nuclear war, radiation etc. A group of animal rights activists break into a laboratory intent on releasing the chimps being used for experimentation but they unwittingly unleash a deadly virus. Twenty eight days later Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma in a deserted hospital to find himself alone in London, not knowing that the entire country has become a desolate place inhabited only by raging infected persons. He meets up with Selena (Naomie Harris) who has managed to survive. They later meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns) and decide to head north where the believe the army has established some sanctuary. There's some exciting action set pieces, fast paced and at times bloody and shocking but it's the overall images of the country devoid of people whereas nature continues that really impress (the shots of a blazing Manchester are powerful). With scenes reminiscent of the horror of war and highly impactive recreated scenes of news footage that look so real this is at times a scary horror, but also one that makes you think that this is what it could be like should anything as terrible happen and like many horror films it's more about the evils of the survivors than the actual monsters. A remarkable film, definitely one to check out even if horror isn't usually your thing.