28 Weeks Later (R)
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Caution: spoilers.

This came out in 2007, but I didn't see it til 2015. It's a sequel to 28 Days Later, which is probably a bit better than this movie, but I probably liked this movie a bit more. It's hard to say for sure. Either way, I don't plan on ever watching either movie again, but I'm glad to have seen them both.

So... it begins during the time frame of the first movie, with a group of people hiding in a cottage. One of them is Don (played by Robert Carlyle, whom I know from Once Upon a Time). Another is his wife, Alice. Of course, they're soon attacked by the zombies (I mean, people infected with the rage virus), who apparently kill almost everyone. Don manages to get away, but he feels some guilt over leaving Alice behind. I couldn't really blame him, because if he'd tried to stay and protect her, there is a 100% chance that he would have either been killed or infected, right along with her. Anyway, the movie then flashes forward 28 weeks. The U.S. military leads a NATO force under the command of Brigadier General Stone (Idris Elba) to set up a district for survivors who had escaped during or before the outbreak, to now be repatriated. Apparently all the infected are dead, but there's still some concern that the virus could return. Two of the people who are brought into District 1 are Don and Alice's teenage daughter Tammy and 12-year-old son Andy, both of whom had been away at camp or something, before the outbreak. Don now has an important job in District 1, and of course he and his kids are happy to be reunited, but he doesn't tell them the whole truth about what happened to their mother. (Or, he makes it sound like there's nothing he could have done to save her, which is true. But... it makes him look bad, I guess.)

The next day, the kids sneak into the quarantined zone and go to their house to get some things, including a picture of their mother, whose face Andy is worried he might forget. But a man named Doyle (Jeremy Renner), one of the snipers keeping watch over District 1, had seen them leave, so the military follows them. Meanwhile, Andy discovers Alice living in the house, and it's not quite clear if she's infected or not. Of course the kids will later be upset that their father had lied to them. But mostly they're all just happy to learn that Alice is alive. And she's brought back to District 1, where a doctor named Scarlet (Rose Byrne) runs some tests on her. It turns out she has an immunity to the virus, though she's also a carrier. So she could infect people, but her blood could also provide a cure. Unfortunately, Don goes in to see Alice later, when no one is around. She apparently forgives him, and they kiss... and of course her saliva infects him. So he goes crazy and starts killing and/or infecting people, and the whole base is put on lockdown, and the soldiers all start shooting the infected, and eventually they're ordered to start killing all the civilians in the place, not just the infected.

In the midst of the chaos, Doyle sights Andy through his gun scope, and decides not to kill him. Andy makes it into a building where a number of people are hiding, including Scarlet and Tammy. Doyle then joins them, and helps them escape and get past all the other snipers. So, they go on the run, and Doyle makes plans for his friend Flynn (Harold Perrineau), a helicopter pilot, to pick him up. Flynn is upset when he finds that Doyle has people with him, and says he can't take them all. Meanwhile, there are still a bunch of infected running around wreaking havoc, so... Doyle and his charges again go on the run, still planning to meet up with Flynn later, at another destination. And Scarlet tells Doyle that the kids' lives are more important than their own, because it's possible they inherited their mother's immunity to the virus. And from time to time Don continues to show up. He seems to be tracking them, and also seems somewhat more intelligent than any other infected... I mean, he's only mostly mindless.

And that's all I'll say about the plot. I will say it definitely felt more American than the first movie, which was more British. (I mean, they're both British, but the first one definitely more so.) Anyway... it was a decent movie. I guess. Reasonably scary, with a bit of humor and a bit of heart, or whatever.