28 Days Later
28 Days Later
You’ve been here before, at the end of the world as we know it, as forces beyond our control ravage our minds and lives. You know what we’re talking about— the zombie disaster movie. 28 Days Later is Danny Boyle’s excellent take on the genre. Set in modernday UK, a major disaster has struck the world in the form of a “rage virus”, which has turned much of humanity into slavering monsters, and London into a ghost town.
It is told from the point of view of a hapless innocent called Jim, who wakes up from a coma in a hospital to a surreal scene of desolation and menace. When he leaves the hospital, he is confronted with a deserted London. Jim encounters two other survivors, including a tough girl called Selena, and they make their way to a quarantined military facility, which is being run by deranged English soldiers. Shot on video to give the film an authentic quality, Boyle wisely avoids big gestures and larger-than-life heroes, and instead focuses on that very fragile thing— human nature.
20th Century Fox
Price: Rs 499 Sunshine.jpg)
Sunshine
Set some 50 years from now, the sun seems to be dying a premature death at the beginning of the film. How could that be? Apparently, the sun has caught a cold, or as the scientific jargon puts it—a Q Ball. So, a team of intrepid scientists set out with a nuclear weapon and set their controls for the heart of the sun. They plan to bomb the sun, blast the Q Ball into tiny bits and release the sunshine. But here’s the rub. Their’s is the second ship to try this.
A first spaceship, the Icarus I had disappeared with its deadly cargo, which precipitated the need for Icarus II. So far so good. But then the surprises start coming. There’s a healthy dose of hubris involved in firing an atomic bomb at the sun, and yet it is an act of hope—that we can put our deadly weapons to good use. A post-modern director if there ever was one, Boyle’s film references other classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and delivers an intelligent and grown-up space movie.
20th Century Fox
Price: Rs 599
