The ’28 Days Later’ films really aren’t helping men’s case
I spent a lot of my adult life thinking that I watched the 28 Days Later films when I was in high school. Call it forgetfulness or just that I saw zombies and thought I’d seen them but alas, I had not actually watched the franchise.
I know this now because I watched both 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later and realized that I’d never seen these movies. So I came into the franchise with fresh eyes without KNOWING that I was coming into it with fresh eyes. With 28 Years Later coming out soon, I wanted to “revisit” the films. But hilariously I found something new to obsess over within the films, originally created by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland: I’d never trust a man in an apocalypse.
Starting with 28 Days Later, it became abduntantly clear that there was one good man and it was Jim (Cillian Murphy). Rest in peace to Frank (Brendan Gleeson), you also counted. But when Jim, Selena (Naomie Harris), and Hannah (Megan Burns) meet Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) and his crew, I was reminded that some men cannot be trusted. Talk about the start of the male loneliness epidemic.
Henry and his soldiers are basically “welcoming” to Jim, Selena, and Hannah because they saw the chance to have female companionship. That’s weird! That’s messed up! Maybe worry about surviving and not about sleeping with the first woman you see! It’s barely been a month of the apocalypse and this is how they’re acting.
It really did make me question how men would act in the apocalypse and I did, unfortunately, understand that people would be like Major Henry and the men who lured people into their “safe haven.”
28 Weeks Later furthered that frustration
To start, 28 Weeks Later was obviously not directed by Boyle. That was Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olm. I don’t dislike the film like many others but it also didn’t help me think that men in a world of zombies were a good idea. Except, you know, the one good man of the movie.
We start with Don (Robert Carlyle), who abandons his wife to save himself. I was not a Robert Carlyle fan during the Once Upon a Time days (I don’t like what they did to my Beauty and the Beast love) and 28 Weeks Later hasn’t made me want to trust any of his characters. But getting to see how a man will go out of his way to pretend like he didn’t “mean” to leave his wife for dead, and how that leads to an entire city getting bombed because of his actions, I’m leaning towards making men live on an island by themselves when the end of days comes.
But, like 28 Days Later before it, Sergeant Doyle (Jeremy Renner) is the one man we can trust in the film. I do have to respect that these movies basically say “you have one man you know is a good guy but everyone else? Suspect.”
I hope that 28 Years Later continues this trend. We have to respect that the films recognize that men aren’t necessary the BEST choice in a dire situation and I hope we get our one good man in the upcoming films.
(featured image: Searchlight Pictures)
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