Movie Review: "28 Days Later" (Gun Related)

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TarpleyG

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Went to see 28 Days Later last night. In case you do not know, the premise is that some PETA types release "rage" infected primates from Cambridge. A bicycle messenger that was involved in an accident was out cold in a hospital for 28 days, wakes up and no one is around, encounters "rage infected" people trying to kill him, and then runs into a few normal people that save his a$$.

Anyway, being in England (London and Manchester) there are of course no guns to be found except for the rogue band of military personnel that is encountered around the middle of the movie. Seeing that guns do indeed take care of the "infected" threat, the main character in the movie still never opts to use a gun or take a gun with him. He and the heroine instead choose a baseball bat and machete respectively. Are the Brits really that brainwashed to believe that only the police and military needs firearms even in the face of total human annihilation?

Other than that, the movie was good. Great cinematography and good plot although a little depressing to envision.

GT
 
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Just the producer's subtle attempt to dissociate guns with heroics. Seems this could become the current trend. Charlie's Angles seemed to go this route, IIRC.

Anyone having trouble with the thought of shooting someone, though having no trepidation of hacking someone with a bladed weapon certainly has a screw loose.
 
I went to see this movie last weekend and was major disappointed.
It was a weird Brit movie. I noticed early on that the guy never opted for any firearms, surely he could have picked one up from a dead cop. And what was the deal about having to siphon gas from an old truck. Why not just go to an abandoned service station. Thousands of vehicles around including Range Rovers and they use that mini-taxi. Two thumbs down.
 
While I definitely agree with you on the taxi topic, I don't on the tanker truck. There was no eletricity to run the pumps. I asked my wife the same thing about the taxi last night when they drove out ofthe garage with it. Seems like he could've had his pick of any other type of vehicle around.

GT
 
Guns for completely untrained noobs? Machete and bat are probably safer for them and each other... And a bat doesn't run out of hammer when you miss, it's not like they could stop at Wal Mart for more ammo.

Charlies Angels II just needs to curl up and die...

Run out of hammer? I was mixing words up for sure...

RUN OUT OF AMMO! :)
 
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I noticed the hero didnt use guns, but c'mon, if the heroes all had guns, horror movies would be too short.

I thought the movie was pretty good. If that were me, I woulda taken all those SA80 mags from the Brits when they weren't lookin'...reeehawww!!
 
as usual with these sort of shows...if your hero has exceptional intelligence, superhuman powers, AND is properly armed then all the villains will be dead in the first fifteen minutes - and then what are we going to fill the rest of the show with?
 
And a bat doesn't run out of hammer when you miss, it's not like they could stop at Wal Mart for more ammo.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing -- no ammo problem. BUT wait, machettes (spell?) need sharpening and don't the heros have to deal with infection from the blood-spilling? This might be when bullets from 25 yards away is much preferrable to close quarter combat.
 
Sound like a remake of that Charleton Heston movie, "The Omega Man" . . . which was itself a remake of a Vincent Price movie, "I Am Legend" which was named after a book with the same title.

I guess it's hard to come up with new ideas . . .
 
Yes HankB, thats the first thing I thought of "The Omega Man".
Starring our man Mr Heston. I figured it would be like that.
A good movie and I watch it whenever it comes on those classic movie channels. He had access to all the stores, gas, cars etc. just like you would want in that situation.
 
I thought 28 days was lame as hell. The bat/machette as your main weapon is such a cop-out for the movie's writers. No imagination. Not only that, it's stupid as all hell to use a melee weapon on these fast moving zombies where a single drop of blood in your eye/mouth/a cut and boom, you're hosed. You wouldn't survive a single encounter with a zombie with this stupid setup. There are still shooting clubs and such in England isn't there? Some guns like shotguns or something are legal right? I'm not sure, but if I lived there I'm sure I'd know of somewhere that some kind of firearm could be gotten from, that would be my first priority in this situation. And if not there are still plenty of improvised weapons, like molotov cocktails (seems like they had maybe one in the movie) and such. If nothing else I would be a walking molotov cocktail ready to burn up a couple hundred zombies before they got me...

My quips with the weapons/defense aside I still thought the movie sucked. Felt like a typical British movie, just somehow off. I didn't get this "great cinematography" and "really scary" and such crap others get out of it...
 
I really liked that movie. I was thinking the same thing, "They need guns!". But, if you couldn't find any firearms, (it is in England) and you probably wouldn't know how to use it anyway, you would opt for a melee weapon.

Besides, the last thing I wanted to see was a cliche, 1980's action hero mowing down zombies with a machine gun. (That would have been entertaining, but not fitting in this flick.) There's been way too many corny movies lately, I thought it was a breath of fresh air.
 
wow!

Someone else actually knows about "I Am Legend"! It's a wild movie, though not quite as wild as "Omega Man."

I think we need a third remake, but nobody could do it like Chuck. And that funky music.

From my long, long on-line debates with many YOB's, my attitude is best summed up with quote Burt from "Tremors," "I wouldn't give YOU a gun if it was World War Three!" These people, indoctrinated from birth to hate and fear firearms, would at first be revolted, then start covering everyone and capping off rounds left and right. Especially if all social constraints were gone, I'd MUCH rather have the Brits armed with clubs or frozen fish.
 
>Yeah, right. In Britain...


Actually, Trooper, many English police do carry guns, though usually "semi-concealed" in a large pocket. They could only get away with being unarmed back when all the citizens down to the 90-year-old ladies had cane guns, umbrella guns, elephant guns, etc. etc.
 
Sticking to the movie, the main character never had a chance to pick up a firearm until close to the end of the movie. He did use one of the SA-80's that he got from one of the brit soldiers, once it was out of ammo he dumped it. The soldiers were using their rifles to shoot the zombies that and they also set up booby traps and landmines.

If you remember, she told him not to get any blood in your eyes or mouth. If you did, your DONE! And she was pretty damn handy with that machette.:what:
 
Actually, Trooper, many English police do carry guns, though usually "semi-concealed" in a large pocket. They could only get away with being unarmed back when all the citizens down to the 90-year-old ladies had cane guns, umbrella guns, elephant guns, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

Really? I do know that they have some sort of firearms teams that handle armed suspects once the bobbies call them in, but I was under the impression that British constables in general carry only a baton/tonfa. At least that's what a British police officer told me.


Regards,

Trooper
 
Hm..... speaking as an educated well-read semiBrit, I'd say that the vast majority of people would not pick up a gun - either through indoctrination, in the vast majority of cases, or rarely through being smart enough to say to themselves "I don't know how to use this".

Of the small remainder, a large proportion of those who would pick up the gun would be hideously unsafe with it - remember, they will have learned everything they know from books, movies and first-person shooters. They'll do things like have their finger on the trigger to brace the weapon as they draw the slide back, be unprepared for the strength of the spring on the slide and Do Something Stoopid.

I would guesstimate that under one percent of nonmilitary personnel in the UK could pick up a gun and handle it safely. I'm including the police in this figure, 'cause out of 60 million people, there just is no gun awareness - at all.

Go figure.
 
Well, there's a reason that this movie had to be based in Britain:

British Subject: "Ahh! Zombies! What'll I do, what'll I do..." *crunch* *scream* *slobber* *brains being eaten*

American Citizen: "Zombies, eh? Good thing I got that progressive reloader for the .50 cal...Hon, I'll be on the roof with the Barret. Bring me up a few rounds when ya get a chance..."
 
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