Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Swedish
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras:
Storyboard alternate ending, 8 deleted scenes with optional commentary,
"Pure Rage: The Making of 28 Days Later", Music video, Stills gallery,
Polaroid gallery, Animated storyboards, Teaser, Trailer, Audio Commentary
Director:
Danny Boyle
(28 Days Later, The Beach, A Lifeless Ordinary, Millions, Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, TV: Inspector Morse, Mr Wroe's Virgins)
Producer:
Andrew Macdonald
Screenplay:
Alex Garland
Music :
John Murphy
Cast :
Jim: Cillian Murphy
Selena: Naomie Harris
Hannah: Megan Burns
Mark: Noah Huntley
Major Henry West: Christopher Eccleston
Private Mailer: Marvin Campbell
Frank: Brendan Gleeson
Scientist: David Schneider
Animal rights activists break into a lab
where monkeys are being tested on, attack the scientist (I'm Alan Partridge's
Tony Hayers, David Schneider) and release the caged creatures. However,
they've been deliberately infected with 'Rage' and letting them out of their
enforced home is not a good idea...
28 Days Later, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in his
hospital bed and is surprised to find there's no-one in the building. In fact,
as he dresses up in standard issue blue hospital pyjamas and steps outside
he realises there's no-one in the whole of London either.
Alas, what starts with promise soon goes downhill and just seems effectively
pointless. Jim chances across a couple of freedom fighters, Selena (Naomie
Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who inform him
the country is ravaged by the Infected - zombies whose only mission is to
infected those who are still okay. They come across more Infected to dispatch,
meet up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan
Burns) and set off to find more uninfected people.
As (bad) luck would have it, the only ones they find are mad Major Henry West
(Christopher Eccleston) and his men. Their only hope is finding a way
out of the country, since, while England may be lacking in life and electricity,
other countries are living normal lives.
I only carried on until the end to see how things would turn out but it was
only mildly gory and sadly predictable and I couldn't recommend it to anyone. Go
and watch a much better movie such as the original
Dawn of the Dead.
Shot on DV digital cameras this may be a dull movie but it's one that's
well-filmed and brings across the dead landscape very effectively. Presented
in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen, there's no problems with the image and it
looks good when the image is treated such that frames are missing to convey
a sense of panic during fast motion.
Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, there are also sound moments that'll make you
jump out of your skin such as 26 minutes into the film - the surprise of which
I'll leave for you to find out - but I had the volume way up high as the scene
content was quiet and I had a fan running in the same room during the hot
summer. The volume then deafened and I reached for the control so as not to
disturb the neighbours any more than I had!
The extras are very thin on the ground:
Deleted Scenes (14 mins):
7 scenes, all with optional commentary from director Danny Boyle and
screenwriter Alex Garland. Some are extended or alternate scenes rather
than just deleted. Strangely these are all in 4:3, and the video quality for "Hospital Dream",
"Floorboard", "Taxi/Sweden" and "London Walk" are severly screwed and look
jumpy. The audio is way out too.
Alternate Ending (2½ mins):
Largely what we've seen already but with one difference, to detail which
would be a spoiler.
Pure Rage: The Making of 28 Days Later (24 mins):
Presented in 1.85:1 letterbox, the cast and crew waffle on about their
thoughts of the film, with film clips mixed in. However, this 'making of'
is practically unwatchable as when the talking heads talk, the camera is
either purposely blurry or zooms in randomly. FFS! Just point the camera
at the subject and film them. Don't try and be 'hip and cool' like a film
student - it just looks shit.
Galleries (18 and 4 mins):
Two here, both with commentary. One features pictures taken by the stills
photographer who was on set the entire time, the second featuring polaroids
taken for continuity purposes.
Marketing:
A teaser trailer (90 seconds, 1.85:1 letterbox), theatrical trailer (2 mins,
1.85:1 letterbox), Animated storyboards from the UK website (90 secs) and
the Jacknife Lee music video which is just clips from the film set to the
dance track (6½ mins, 4:3)
Audio commentary:
A feature-length commentary with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland.
The disc is also inflicted with a few bloody-annoying trailers that you're
forced to sit through the second the disc boots up as if it was a rental title.
However, at least with this disc you can fast-forward through them.
The film contains 32 chapters, subtitles are available in English and Swedish
and the main menu is animated and scored with a looped piece of music from
the film.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
