This film is kind of a gestalt. More of a pastiche, if you will, of a bunch of really great "sci-fi" films of years past. It's pretty much been sold as a cross-over between 28 Days Later and Mad Max/The Road Warrior, but really, it's those films put in the trappings of Escape From New York, with some nice nods to Aliens and, fuck, I dunno, Camelot? In other words, not a lot of original material going on here, but at least it looks pretty good.
The ploy? Hotly empowered military chick/killing machine/epidemic survivor gets "the timed mission" to go into the 30-year+ quarantined Scotland to try and find a cure for a new outbreak of previously mentioned epidemic, this time (gasp!) outside the walled area previously known as Northern France. Or somewhere thereabouts, my Scandinavian geography is pretty sketchy.
This is Marshall's first real big-budget flick, and it kinda suffers for it. It follows his decent debut of low-budget werewolf flick Dog Soldiers and more recent creepy The Descent, both solid but flawed movies in their own right. But this tends to be a little too glossy and broad, mostly due to quick edits, minimal character development and prolonged action sequences. Veteran Bob Hoskins lends a bit of character credibility, and Malcolm McDowell in a relatively subdued role. It definitely gets a bit extra in the Look rating for main lead Rhona Mitra, who's, well, fucking hot. But in a respectfully subdued, ass-kicking way. Fairly vapid overall, but enjoyable enough with some gruesome violence scattershot throughout.
