It would be easy for zombie- movie fans to take this film lightly. To call it a combined rip-off of the Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead series, the under-appreciated early 70’s movie The Crazies, Stephen King’s The Stand, and lots more you will probably remember. Technically it isn’t even about zombies, but people infected with a virus.
But writer Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle have taken some familiar elements and given them a freshness, an originality, even a vision, that is uniquely their own. They have come up with a plot that is simple but tight, and well-drawn characters. They also give you several subtle reminders as to how precious our stressed-out, early 21st century life can be, as aggravating as it feels day-to-day.
This movie could have taken a paranoid viewpoint, with mega-corporations uniting to enslave the world with disease. Instead you see a series of careless errors that come together to set off bigger and bigger explosions. First, scientists create a virus called Rage. Then they test it on chimpanzees which are locked in cruel confinement (tiny glass tanks). The Rage virus turns the chimpanzees into killing machines ready to go off at any time.
Then, animal rights activists liberate them.
The activists really want to do the right thing. Given the amount of abuse done to apes in the name of science, these activists refuse to believe a researcher who tells them they are making a terrible mistake. They react to this man like he is “the boy who cried wolf.” Only this time it’s no bullshit. With their idealistic
animals-rights agenda, they are literally letting a plague loose
on the world. Not only do the infected chimps attack the first human they get their hands on, but in a matter of seconds you can see that she has been infected too, just from the look in her eyes.
Ignorance, coupled with foolishly dangerous, misguided science has resulted in a situation far worse than a conspiracy-theory believer could dream up.
The movie’s hero, Jim, had been hospitalized for injuries from a traffic accident. He awakes to silence that feels deafening . Silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. Outside the hospital, he can see the usual pigeons and gulls but otherwise the city is lifeless; all is still, unmoving. No people to be seen anywhere. Familiar sights, the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, but everywhere the same deathly silence.
A bizarre dream–London without people
Jim is not normally a man of action. For a long time he wanders, not sure how to react. Ironically, the first living human he sees is a complete lunatic, a minister in his own church, a place you might
well expect to serve as some sort of sanctuary. Jim pulls out of his apathy long enough to bash the minister with a bag full of metal cans. This allows him to stay alive.
After more wandering, a group of maniacs spot him. Jim runs but you wonder how much further he can get. At that moment he meets the first normal people he has seen, Selena and Mark. They rescue Jim by setting the maniacs on fire.
Jim–One mistake can be fatal
Jim can see that neither Selena nor Mark has been a soldier or police officer, but they have quickly learned how to survive in this new world. Selena quickly tells Jim there has been a plague, but not to ask too many questions; “Staying alive is as good as
it gets.” The rules she and Mark follow are simple: never go anywhere alone, and never go out at night, unless absolutely necessary. You soon learn one more valuable rule—if anyone you know catches the disease, you kill them with no hesitation.
Selena and Mark go with Jim for a last visit to his house. Because it’s too late to walk back to a safe place before dark, they sleep there till the next day. While Jim watches videos of his dead mother and father, a man enters through a window. Clearly infected. Mark and Jim are soon covered with blood while they subdue him. Suddenly Selena kills Mark. She tells Jim she knew right away that Mark was infected, by the expression on his face. She is quick to add, “ I’d do the same to you.”
One bite is all it takes
Eventually, Jim and Selena find two more survivors living in a high-rise building, Frank and his daughter Hannah. Holed up in this apartment, they hear a radio message promising help and safety, at a location near the city of Manchester. After some hesitating,
they decide to drive there.
Exposed and vulnerable
Even though each attack by an Infected (as Selena calls them) is gruesome and thick with spattered blood, you are shown one reminder after another of how life was, how precious. A life you probably take for granted, waking up each day and telling yourself something to the effect of—Same shit, different day.
Only after this holocaust can people see the small touches of happiness they once had. Jim’s family in the video, his mum’s book of recipes. The goldfish in Frank’s apartment, trying to survive in just a few inches of water. Some beautifully shot scenes of horses running wild in the countryside outside Manchester. Jim
feeling the breeze through the car windows. Selena and Hannah playing cards in the back seat.
They find the city of Manchester burning, but. also find the people who had been broadcasting salvation. These people are
army personnel and at first they seem decent enough. Major
West, the officer in charge, appears to have the trust of his
soldiers. He shows his practical side (keeping an Infected man chained, to see how long he will take to starve to death). Also a touch of the philosopher: People were killing people before the
plague hit, he says, and basically nothing has changed.
But Major West is nowhere as sincere as he seems. His radio message promised “salvation” but he is far from any cure for the virus. He tries to justify the lie by saying he had no choice, that his men were on the brink of despair and suicide. “I promised them women,” he explains. “Women mean a future.”
But for the soldiers, a future starting a new extended family is not a goal. What they want are sex slaves, pure and simple. They are ready to kill anyone standing in the way, whether it’s another soldier or Jim.
For the first time, everything depends on Jim. (Frank was accidentally infected, and shot dead by two of the soldiers.) To save Selena and Hannah, he must outwit more than a half-dozen armed soldiers, none of them exactly filled with compassion. Without spoiling the ending, I will say this: The next time Selena sees Jim, she is shocked to find (almost too late) that he is not one of the Infected.
I enjoyed this movie the first time I saw it and it appears to get better each time I see it again. Selena and Jim’s parts are both written well and acted well. (Naomie Harris is Selena; Cillian Murphy is Jim, both real good.) Selena’s changes at many crucial moments from pure survival instinct back to a yearning to get close to people is touching. Watch her face just after the wild horses have passed. She says to Jim, “I was wrong about saying: ‘staying alive is as good as it gets.’”
You see the gradual changes in Jim. At first he seems almost clueless, hoping he can avoid taking action, not knowing how to take action. You see a huge change in Jim when he realizes what
the situation at the army camp really is. Christopher Eccleston who has had plenty of experience playing men in pain (Jude, A Price above Rubies, Let Him Have It) is all too believable as Major West .
Those in positions of authority turn out to be as desperate (probably more desperate) than those people who came to them for salvation. The Major appears to be saying to Jim: giving these women to my soldiers is the best I can do, under the circumstances.
I could go on and on about a number of other characters and actors, but I’ll leave it at this: No one strikes a false note in this movie.
The screenwriting and the directing are also excellent, though there are so many tilted shots you feel at times like you’re back watching the Batman TV show of the 60’s. The digital photography which worked so effectively in Saving Private Ryan works well here too.
And as horrible as the scenes with Infected attacking are, so
many moments are just as effective in their still beauty. Not many movies are able to make you jump out of your seat at one moment, then silence you with stillness at another.