I went to see 28 Days Later again, for the purpose of seeing the "original" ending. This was supposedly the way it was meant to end, but had tested badly with audiences. Thus, the movie got a "happier" replacement ending, á la Bladerunner.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend that anyone go just for the sake of the extra bit of material. In this case, they were wise to re-do the ending. It was badly-paced, and just didn't fit with the rest of the movie.

(The details, and other spoiler-level discussion, behind the cut.)

The new ending picks up at the point where they've just fed the Major to the infected fellow, and have loaded up in the cab and are driving off. In this new ending, we don't see them crash through the gate. I guess the gate wasn't an issue originally. Rather, we focus on Selena trying to keep Jim lucid despite his gunshot wound, as they drive off for a hospital. We cut to the hospital, and Selena is scrambling for medical supplies as Hannah wheels Jim in on a gurney. But in this one, the efforts to revive Jim fail. He dies on the gurney, despite the work Selena does. The two women look at each other, and Hannah asks Selena, "What now?" Selena answers, "We move." The film ends with them walking down the hospital corridor as the doors slowly swing shut. The movie has essentially ended with Jim more or less back where he started, in the hospital.

But like I said, the pacing just doesn't work. And as a resolution, it isn't very compelling. The replacement ending may have been a little too clean and tidy, but it provided a better sense of closure. It was more of a traditional dénouement, and I do think the filmmakers made the right decision.

Watching it the second time made me wonder, though, how the infection could have spread even over just the island of England. Since the infected person goes completely raged in less than a minute or so, I don't know how it would have gotten from Cambridge to London, let alone Manchester or the rest of the country. There's still a lot of open, undeveloped space out there, and no one who's infected is going to be driving a car or bus. I like how one of the characters figures out that the infection isn't really world-wide, that it couldn't have made it across the channel let alone the Atlantic. But even bridging the 15 or so miles from the start of the film to London seems a bit much. But then, if people took even an hour to become symptomatic, many of the scenes wouldn't have worked like they did.

So, I figure anyone who was going to see this movie has by now. Like I said above, I can't recommend going for just this new ending. Wait for the DVD, which should have a lot of other material as well.