28 Weeks Later- Movie Review

28 weeks later- Blood and Blood All over again

The sequel to the Danny Boyle directed “28 days later” jumps out of the hat this year baptized,’28 weeks later’,horrifying the audience with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo as its Godfather. The movie provides the audience enough room to visualise their nightmares onscreen. Though the story is deficient in certain nutrients, that doesn’t affect him growing into a ‘scary’ boy. A macabre nature prevails throughout the episode which is unavoidable like blood cells to blood. Whatsoever this one proves to be a good engager and undoubtedly worth a watch. The producer team has already made a good pot-pourri of coins and acclamation as well. But in the recent past we have seen quite a number of movies from the same family, this holds the plot within our knowledge. All these movies are attributed to the age old Senecan tragedies, where even the popcorn is made out of blood.

The plot breaks open when we behold Don{Robert Carlyle} and his wife Alice{Catherine McCormack} hiding themselves along with a group of survivors somewhere in London which is infected with the highly contagious virus called ‘Rage‘ which has the potential to unleash humans into blood hungry monsters. But in no time, the infected people set the house on blood by their killing spree. A reluctant Don escapes in a motor boat leaving behind his wife and a boy. 28 weeks later we are being proclaimed that London is safe and a NATO army controlled by America starts regenerating her. Don’s children Tammy{Imogen Poots} and her younger brother Andy{Mackintosh Muggleton} arrive at London with other expatriates. After checking them, the army doctor Major Scarlett Ross{Rose Byrne} is not happy with her higher officials for not informing her about the arrival of minors to the camp, but she did not fail to notice the phenomenon of ‘Heterochromia’ in Andy’s eyes. After a bunch of formalities,the kids are taken to district 1, in the isle of Dogs, a protected area where Don is the caretaker. The father explains the kids his woe of leaving their mother behind and following that the children escape their way out of the protected area back to their sweet home which is in a deserted street to collect certain things, without noticing Doyle{Jeremy Renner} a sniper’s notice. As a bolt from the blue the children find their mother hiding in their home, infected with the virus but immune. After a small pandemonium the trio is brought back to District 1, where Alice is quarantined. The medical officer deduces that her blood may have the necessary ingredients to prepare a vaccine for the ‘rage’. In a short while,Don meets his wife Alice like an apostle watching the resurrected Christ. When he expresses his token of love by planting her a soft kiss, the evil virus provides him an opportunity to help it by spreading its word of blood. Once again the serpent is back with a bang in its mission.

All round the movie we see someone carrying the baton of a perfect traumatic action. In the incubating stage Robert Carlysle and Catherine McCormack run with it before handing it over to Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton who carry it on till the very end, helped by Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner. The lack of a heroic figure assembles the movie fear packed dictating it’s success. The director should be hailed for his little idiosyncracies found all over the film and for horror plating a nothing out of the ordinary rod. He has painted every character neatly in red, without any flaws though he has flouted the conventional laws. For instance even the small boy who enters the cottage house in the very first scene serves us ironically to sow the seeds of the story’s action, which later develops in to a ghostly tree.

Though this ship seems to be perfect without any holes, the story lumbers in and out of the bloody caves at times, without moving forward. Inspite of being a science fiction movie, the logic at certain areas appears to be magic as well as tragic. A bit of work on the storyline would have made the movie shine different from its motivators The House of the Dead and Resident Evil. Let us look forward for these corrections in the upcoming sequel, “28 months later” to be released in 2009.

Chewing the technical aspects, Enrique Chediak‘s cinematography evidently fuels the movie, till it reaches the finish line. Also the exotic camera positions adds verisimilitude to the horror. Chris Gill‘s editing should be admired for the fast paced movement of of the movie excluding a few scenes. John Murphy‘s music communicates the “28 weeks later” effect optimally. MPAA has given 28 Weeks Later an R for strong violence and gore, language and some nudity. The film has been rated 18 in the UK. So not a family entertainer but a good time passer for the adults. 28 weeks later says “I kiss thee before I mess thy race”

-Spontic

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Katrathu Tamil{Tamil M.A}- Movie review

Katrathu Tamil{Tamil M.A} – Confessions of a ravenous Tamilian!

Debutant director Ram has delivered us a mystic mirror which displays the sad plight of a young Tamil graduate,enlightening us the other side of Tamil Nadu. Though a “pessimistic to the core” movie the director has made a lovely and lively movie which will have long lasting impressions in the minds of the audience. The director should be glorified for the guts with which he has shaped his ferocious fireworks. Despite the director’s effort to make the movie viewable for all the age groups, a few scenes drive us to say “Viewer discretion is recommended”. This movie is undoubtedly an avant garde rain in a desert of stereotypical Tamil movies. Jeeva has scored a triple century with the given piece of willow named “Prabhakar”, which will bring laurels to him and take him to new heights.

The plot is woven in the shape of number ‘8’ using the “Stream of consciousness technique”. The story wheel starts rotating when we see Mr.Prabhakar{Jeeva}, the Tamil teacher of a small school in Chennai getting arrested for smoking in a public place. Following this he gets humiliated in the police station by the crooked policemen using his own “Tamil” as their mocking tool . As a result of this he assays to suicide which once again lands him up in the same old airport named Police station. But this time the nefarious policemen formulate a plan to convict prabha in a ‘weed’ smuggling case. Unlike the previous time Prabhakar skedaddles from them and runs for life. But this run forces him to commit a murder first and murders later. After a small interlude Prabhakar comes back and explains his life steps which he traced with fever and frustration to yuwang suwang{Karunas}, a camera man. As a small boy Prabhakar had lost his mother and grandparents and been brought up by a Tamil ayya {AzhagamPerumal} in a school in his village while his father left him to the army. Before moving into his favorite tamil ayya’s bosom Prabhakar spends his jocund time with his neighborhood girl Anandi{Anjali}. Eventually in a bus accident both Tamil ayya and Anandi’s father die and this provides Prabhakar the opportunity to renew his relationship passport with Anandi, which he carries on but only for a short while, till fate moves Anandi’s family to Maharashtra. Thereafter Prabhakar gets lashed by the whips of life and at last gets back Anandi though he has met her once in Maharashtra. The previously mentioned “interlude” is the Zeal of the movie and Nadir of Prabhakar’s life. To know what happened after Prabhakar’s video got published, visit Mr.Tamil M.A.

Once again Jeeva perfectly rolls the dice to move to the next part of his career. The emergence of Jeeva as one of the top-notch actors is as sure as eggs is eggs. Like a silver foil he shines out at the right times and in the right ways in this movie. Jeeva’s action makes it easy for us to think ourselves in the character’s shoes. In the last half an hour Jeeva goes for the full Monty through his angry questionings.The new comer Anjali who plays the female lead hits a clean home run using her motley named Anandi. Her adorable body language and appealing eyes proclaim that she has cut out her trump card perfectly. She corroborates that a real heroine don’t need a sentimental duet or a skin show to establish that she is the ‘heroine’. So the leading duo muscle with gusto to do their role best. Azhagamperumal who plays the Tamil Ayya with a Tirunelveli slang proves that he can do any character to the bee’s knees. Karunas plays a bit of comic melody in this tragic composition. Other than these director has puppeted every character well

The movie galumphs in the first half without any focus similar to the protagonist. After a big pandemonium it focuses its lens on the theme only in the second half. Too much of pessimism and lack of speed may obstruct the box office success of the movie. Although the questions posed by the director in this movie are appealing emotionally, they bring forth his ignorance of the existence of a whole lot of people who are successful after taking up a career in humanities,especially Tamil. The director would have taken care to see that a few scenes and dialogues are edited for profanity. The plot structure is too tough to make out for a run-of-the-mill man. If the director had fixed the above bugs,this movie would have been an unblemished one

Turning up to the technicalities, the Camera makes the chimera come true by swaying through various locations, in particular the mountain terrains. The Editor has done a good job by properly setting out the scenes, since its terribly difficult to contrive the bits and pieces of a stream of consciousness movie. Yuvan Shankar Raja‘s BGM is highly incongruous except in a few places where it conveys the effect of the scenes exceptionally well. All the songs are quintessential with Yuvan’s western imitation marks. “Para para Para Pattampochi” is the best of them all. So ‘Katrathu Tamil ‘says, If you play God you have the right to play with disturbing lives”

-Spontic

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