It's here that the commendable focus on character gives way to the temptations of a bigger budget, more bangs and gore, but markedly less suspense. Suffice to say that the key twist this time around is genetic immunity to the virus, and the soldiers soon have plenty to do. To tell you more would give away major spoilers. There they discover mum is waiting for them. They sneak across the river, desperate to see the family home. Initially excited by being given the run of a luxury apartment block, the kids soon grow as bored as the GIs patrolling around them. He tells them of their mother’s death but downplays his own actions. He is reunited with his teenage daughter Tammy (Imogen Poots) and 11-year-old son Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton). Don has survived and his past as a building site manager means he is one of the first 500 Brits chosen for the new Green Zone on the Isle of Dogs, helping to "keep the place running" while the clean up begins. Six months down the line, the last Infected have died of starvation, the quarantine on Britain has been lifted and a US led Nato force has moved into London to begin the first stages of reconstruction. Finally, only Don and Alice are left - and Don saves himself rather than take a suicidal risk to rescue his wife. What follows matches anything in the original for sheer bottle-in-the-face visceral drama. They are part of a motley group of survivors holed up in a Home Counties semi and when Alice demands that they let a desperate young boy in, the Infected come too. Their loving relationship is patiently and subtly laid out, but so is the growing air of unease. We first meet them at the height of the Infected plague, in a long, intimate scene where they prepare a dinner of foraged food by candlelight. The couple at the heart of the story, Don and Alice, are played by Robert Carlyle and Catherine McCormack, for my money two of the most talented and versatile British actors around (and Carlyle’s presence, given his association with Boyle and Macdonald on Trainspotting, still all three’s finest hour, is extra reassurance that this is a quality product). The theme of the randonmness or otherwise of survival and the burdens it carries is one of many interesting ideas and directorial flourishes he brings to the party.īut a good follow up to such a basically character driven piece needs to have the right kind of people as its protagonists and the right actors playing them - 28 Weeks Later scores big on both counts. Fresnadillo first came to the attention of British audiences with the ingenious thriller Intacto, about a group of people with supernatural levels of good luck. All three have producer credits on the sequel and Boyle shot some second unit work, including part of the opening sequence (see if you can spot his scenes I couldn’t).Īnd the director is certainly no production line hack brought in to photocopy the look but ignore the heart of the original. The film’s development came from a desire by the original triumvirate – Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald – to move the concept on. And if his effort doesn’t match the original it’s certainly miles away from the crass, machine tooled, American-aimed cash in you might have feared.įirst the good news. So I approached Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s new take on the world of the Infected with some trepidation. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later was a solid gold idea (fast zombies!) brought to life with flair, imagination, characters you believed in and cared about - plus a very high ratio of pant-wettingly scary moments.Ī hard act to follow – especially when Boyle’s Sunshine has recently wowed the critics and is still putting bums on seats. The prospect is rendered even more off-putting when the original in question is one of the best horror movies of recent years. "Anger and War", "Boadicea vs.Of all the things guaranteed to strike terror into the heart of the film critic, few loom quite as large as the sequel without the original director, or cast. Their daughter Kate Godfrey is Head of Voice for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She is married to fellow actor Patrick Godfrey since 1960, they have two children. Personal life Īmanda Walker is the daughter of Madeleine Christie. In 1990, she appeared in the Agatha Christie's Poirot episode "The Cornish Mystery", an adaptation of Agatha Christie's short story of the same name. Overall, Amanda Walker has appeared in over 100 film and television productions since 1959 and is still active as an actress as of 2018. She is notable for roles in 28 Weeks Later, Heat and Dust, A Room with a View, Pollyanna and Churchill and the Generals. Amanda Galafres Patterson Walker (born 29 November 1935) is an English film and television actress.Īmanda Walker trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
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