If a director uses shaky cam sparingly, and only for particular action sequences and the sequences are well constructed and blocked and shot and retain their coherence, then it can be a powerful tool. After that its use subsided, although occasionally it will still find its way into more contemporary terrible movies like The Big Short. By 2007, the wave had reached its lunatic apotheosis, infecting films like 28 Weeks Later and The Kingdom (a truly terrible movie, which is also one of the most egregious examples of the shaky cam style gone haywire). The really bewildering thing about this, is that the style then caught on and was elevated to something of a fad in Hollywood. Cleanly staged action sequences gave way to an abstract collection of images and camera movements, the cumulative effect of which is to make the viewer seasick and then angry at the director for ruining the movie. When Greengrass took over, he introduced his shaky cam style - employing unnecessary zooms and pans and cuts, and butchering the film into a montage of disconnected, off-center images. The way they were shot, you could track how the action and the choreography flowed. The first film in the series, The Bourne Identity, had some all-time beautiful and cleanly staged action sequences. Handheld shaky cams had been used before of course, but in 2004 when Greengrass directed The Bourne Supremacy, he elevated the style to something of a fad. We have Paul Greengrass to thank for this. Unfortunately, it usually is not done well and the result is complete and total visual incoherence masquerading as a conscious directorial choice and even a lauded style of filmmaking. If done well, like the landing on Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan, it can be very effective. By constantly cutting the visual language is supposed to express the confusion, the violence and the frenzy of the scene. The theory behind this style is clear enough - it’s meant to create immediacy, by placing a handheld camera right in the thick of the action. Even when there is no action, and the characters are just standing, the frame will often bob and weave as if the camera itself has palsy. No doubt he thought he was making art.īut the line between art and garbage has never been clearer and 28 Weeks Later is fully on the wrong side. The camera herks and jerks wildly from start to finish, creating an incomprehensible pastiche of grainy, blurry images. It cannot be viewed by the human eye, because the director (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) employs the shaky cam style to the point where the movie becomes a visual abstraction, more Jackson Pollock than cinematic experience. I’m not exaggerating when I say the film is unwatchable. No, it’s the style of filmmaking, known as shaky cam, which turns 28 Weeks Later into a mess. This is a zombie movie, so that’s par for the course. It’s not the story - which is of course nonsensical and compels each and every character to do the stupidest possible thing at all times. In fact, 28 Weeks Later is essentially unwatchable. With a strong cast including Idris Elba, Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne one would expect this film to be at least OK as far as genre fare goes. The point is that, even back in 2002, there were questionable decisions being made about this franchise.Ģ8 Weeks Later takes the Aliens approach to sequels - it’s the same basic premise as the first film, but now with more military and artillery to blow things up. It is so bad, in fact, that I actually thought this was a fan-made trailer at first, splicing together footage from other movies. It does, however, have one of the worst trailers of all time. The franchise is also generally credited with popularizing the idea of fast-moving zombies, and I thought 28 Days Later was a decent flick, especially considering its subsequent impact on breathing new life into the genre. They are both about a “rage virus” ravaging the UK, and feature pretty standard zombie apocalypse narratives. 28 Weeks Later was the 2007 sequel to 28 Days Later, the 2002 Danny Boyle film starring Cillian Murphy which is often credited with jump-starting the Zombie Renaissance of the 2000s.
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