Among them are siblings Andy (MACKINTOSH MUGGLETON) and Tammy (IMOGEN POOTS) who were previously shipped off for their safety and are now reunited with their dad, Don Harris (ROBERT CARLYLE), who abandoned his wife Alice (CATHERINE McCORMACK) during one of the earlier zombie attacks. Ashamed about what he did, he lies to his kids about what really happened, and although shocked and saddened, they accept it and try to get on with their lives.

Kids being kids, they break the rules and sneak over to London to return to their former home where they unexpectedly discover their mother, alive but not so well. Previously bitten during a zombie attack, her immune system has somehow stopped her from turning into a zombie, although she's a carrier of the virus. That's drawn the attention of Scarlet (ROSE BYRNE), a medical researcher who believes Alice might hold the key to creating a vaccination for the malady, but her military commander orders that the infected woman be killed just to be safe.

Before that happens, however, Don goes to see her, ends up becoming infected, and then escapes from the building, thus spreading the zombie virus once again. The military, including sniper Doyle (JEREMY RENNER) and chopper pilot Flynn (HAROLD PERRINEAU) try to contain the outbreak, but it quickly becomes apparent it's too late. Led by Doyle, Scarlet, Andy, and Tammy then try to make their way to safety and avoid both the swiftly moving zombies as well as the military that has orders to kill anything and everything in the city.

Once upon a time, professional filmmakers realized that shaky camera movement not only caused a certain form of cinematic seasickness, but also distracted most everyone from the proceedings. Thus, we can be quite thankful for the introduction of tripods, counter-weighted cranes and perhaps the best movie invention ever, the Steadicam.

At some point, however, some filmmaker decided that such camera movement could be used to create a documentary style, "you are there" experience for viewers. From that moment forward, others took that cinematographic notion of Cinéma vérité and expanded upon such shaky, handheld footage, figuratively and literally ad nauseam.

Granted, sometimes it works, such as was the case in "Saving Private Ryan" in the various up close and personal battle scenes. More often than not, however, filmmakers over apply the technique in the mistaken belief that the more camera movement, the better to enhance the overall viewing experience. This happens most in action and horror films, as was the case in the modified zombie flick, "28 Days Later."

The twist of the film was turning the notion of the slow to form, lumbering zombie on its head by having near instantaneous transformations, resulting in quiet speedy members of the undead. Director Danny Boyle then spiced up such action by applying all sorts of high shutter speed footage and lots of camera movement, supposedly to heighten the severity of the grisly viewing experience. It worked for some viewers, but I found it tiresome after a while, and couldn't help but feel it was trying to compensate for a lack of genuine thrills and superlative storytelling.

Since it turned out to be a moderate hit, however, it was inevitable it would spawn a sequel, with the result being "28 Weeks Later." With Boyle having moved on to other things, replacement director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo pretty much follows suit by forgoing the tripod, crane or Steadicam for another nausea-inducing bout of handheld camera mania.

In fact, and even more so than was the case the first time around, many of the attack scenes nearly don't register in one's mind since they're almost impossible to decipher visually. The attempted technique is easy to note (visual movement equals enhanced horror), but it's even less successful this time around.

That said, there are various decent horror and action sequences -- created by Fresnadillo and co-writers Rowan Joffe, Jesús Olmo, and Enrique López Lavigne -- that turn out to be quite effective, even if some borrow from the first film or others (including the limited vision, terrified face in the camera bit from the first "Blair Witch Project" flick).

If anything, the pic is a mixture of repeated elements from the first film (all hell breaking out due to those zombies on the loose) as well as the far superior "Children of Men." In that movie, Clive Owen played a man trying to guide a pregnant woman (carrying the literal savior of mankind in her womb) to safety through a war-torn maelstrom.

Here, Jeremy Renner plays a military sniper who abandons his post when he can no longer follow orders to shoot everyone -- zombies and the non-infected -- to try to thwart the spread of the deadly virus. He eventually attempts to lead two siblings (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton playing kids whose bodies might contain the secret to immunity from the disease) to safety through the mix of zombies and military personnel, with both groups wanting them dead.

While zombie movie fans might disagree, the film works best when those undead characters aren't on the screen. And that's mainly because that horror sub-genre has been overdone to death of recent, and there's only so much one can do with such material no matter the speediness of such types here as compared with their lumbering counterparts in most other such films.

All of which means the most recognizable face -- Robert Carlyle -- can't do much once he becomes one of them. Some may read all sorts of parenting context into such matters since he's the father to those kids -- along with the far more obvious jabs at the American military's current occupation of Iraq -- but this film isn't as smart or subtle as its predecessor (or other films) in such regards.

Decent at times -- in terms of pure action -- but redundant at others, and desperately in need of some sort of image stabilization, the film hints at yet another sequel that I guess, if following the temporal titling, will be "28 Months Later." Suffering from many of the same faults that plagued the first film, "28 Weeks Later" rates as a 4 out of 10.