28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Packed w/ three (count ‘em, 3) unsatisfactory endings, Danny Boyle ’s doomsday tale turns the UK into The Night of the Living Dead via a mutant virus, & tricks it all up with his usual speed-induced directorial bravura. Cillian Murphy (a Brit "beau mec" a la Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wakes from a coma to an empty London, but for a few uninfected stragglers. Their picaresque flight thru barren roads & land offers some flavor, but the fright tactics & hacked up action scenes wane in effect. Worse, the film never recovers from a misguided last act where a debased military crew, noting that, as Shakespeare said, "the world must be peopled," try to force the issue on the two female survivors. It all starts to feel like a set-up.