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Synopsis
Don Harris and his heterochromic wife Alice are holed up in a remote countryside cottage in England during the original outbreak of the Rage virus in Britain, and are preparing dinner for four other survivors there with them: the elderly Geoff and Sally, the cold and steely Jacob and the helpless Karen whose boyfriend abandoned the group. Don and Alice have two young children, who were saved from the outbreak in Britain by a school trip abroad. As the group all sit down and eat, they suddenly hear a young boy outside banging on the door and begging to be let in. Don reluctantly lets the boy into the cottage, and, while having food, the boy says that he is from the nearby town Sandford and has been fleeing from his infected parents and a horde of many other infected. While explaining this, the cottage suddenly comes under attack by the infected, who have followed the boy. On their first attack, Karen is infected and then killed by Don. While Don briefly holds off the infected getting in, the group flee and get separated into two: Alice and the boy flee upstairs, while Geoff, Sally and Jacob try to escape through the cottage barn. The infected break through even as Geoff stays behind to hold them off, and he and Sally are both overrun while Jacob escapes through the barn window. At the same time, Alice follows the terrified boy upstairs to try and save him, while Don follows to try and save her. Don tries to convince Alice to flee but she refuses to leave without the boy, and when the infected corner her and the boy in a bedroom, Don abandons his wife and the boy and flees the cottage by himself. With dozens of infected in hot pursuit, Don flees across the farmland to the river dock, where Jacob is attempting to escape by a motorboat. While Don gets into the motorboat and starts it up, Jacob falls into the river and is infected by the infected who have waded into the waters after the survivors, then killed by Don with the motorboat's propeller-blades. Don then escapes downriver from the infected, emerging as the sole survivor.
After the Rage outbreak destroys and wipes out Britain, over the following twenty-eight weeks, the infected die from starvation, and a US-led NATO force enters London and begins repatriating the city with Britons who escaped during the exodus of infected Britain in the outbreak. Among the military force that guard and protect London and its repatriated residents are wisecracking sniper Doyle, and his good friend helicopter pilot Flynn, as well as chief medical officer Scarlet Levy and operation leader General Stone, and Don Harris (who is caretaker of the fully-functional and fortified repatriation zone District One in London).
Among the latest repatriated arrivals to London are Don and Alice's children Tammy and Andy, and the admittance of children into District One without Scarlet's authorisation shocks and worries her. During the two kids' medical inspection, Scarlet notes that Andy has the same heterochromic green and brown eye colour his mother Alice did. Andy and Tammy are reunited with their father Don, who takes them to his luxurious District One penthouse. When the kids ask about what happened to their mother, Don tells them about the infected attack on the cottage during the pandemic, but lies that he saw the infected kill Alice.
The following night, Andy has a nightmare of Alice tearing her face off as Andy fears he'll forget his mother's face; so the next morning, Tammy decies to sneak out of District One with Andy to get a picture of Alice from their old home, though Doyle notices the two sneak out and alerts Flynn. In the ruined, unoccupied area of London, after taking a motorbike from an abandoned pizzeria, Tammy uses it to drive herself and Andy across an empty London to their old home, where the siblings grab a picture of Andy and Alice together and stay to collect their other lost old belongings at the house. While exploring the old Harris home alone, a shocked Andy finds Alice living in one of the rooms, physically and mentally dishevelled from her isolation but otherwise alive. The reunion is cut short when the US military, having been sent to bring Tammy and Andy back to District One, arrive and take them and Alice back to the green zone, where Alice is separated from the kids and the three are detained.
During medical inspection of Alice, Scarlet is about to do a blood test and is trying to ask Alice how she stayed alive out in the post-outbreak country, when she notices an old bite scar on Alice's arm and fears Alice may be infected. Meanwhile, Don goes to a detained Tammy and Andy to take them home, but the kids are furious with their father for lying to them about their mother's fate and demand to know the truth about what really happened. Guilty over abandoning his wife, Don leaves and slips past the military security to go to Alice in the isolation room. As Don sneaks in to see Alice, Scarlet's tests on Alice's blood confirm that she is infected with the Rage virus, but is not suffering any of the virus' symptoms due to a natural immunity caused by a genetic abnormality - making Alice an asymptomatic carrier who is herself immune to the virus' symptoms, but still carries the virus and can pass it on to others. Scarlet wants to keep Alice alive for more tests in hopes of finding a key to immunisation against the Rage virus from Alice's blood, but Stone wants to have Alice killed to ensure she can't cause another outbreak of infection.
In the isolation room, Don begs Alice to forgive him for abandoning her, which she seemingly does. However, Don and Alice then kiss, causing the Rage in Alice's saliva to infect Don. The infected Don brutally beats Alice to death, before escaping into District One, attacking and infecting or killing anyone he comes across. Upon learning infection is spreading, Stone and the other generals move to a safety bunker and execute a District One lockdown called Code Red. As the Rage virus spreads and chaos takes hold, when the spread reaches the detainment area where Tammy and Andy are, Scarlet comes and rescues the kids and tries to get them evacuated to safety as top-priority figures. However, in the chaos, Andy gets separated from Scarlet and Tammy and is herded with District One's other civilians into a safe room garage where the soldiers lock them all inside as the green zone's power cuts out.
As District One's military forces mobilise against the outbreak, in the garage where Andy and the civilians are locked in, the infected Don breaks into the garage as a horrified Andy watches and attacks the civilians, causing the infection to massively and virulently spread among the civilians there in a domino effect and quickly infecting dozens - hundreds. In the panic, the civilians break out of the garage and flee into the streets, while Andy escapes from the infected through the ventilation systems. In the streets of District One, Doyle and the other rooftop snipers are initially ordered to shoot only infected, but as the infection continues to spread and it becomes harder to tell the infected from uninfected, they're ordered to kill everyone in sight. Andy escapes from the chaos and infected into a warehouse where other survivors are holed up as the military massacre everyone, while Doyle - unable to comply with kill-all order - abandons his post and joins the survivors in the warehouse. There, Andy reunites with Scarlet and Tammy and sadly informs his sister of how their father is one of the infected, and Doyle offers the kids, Scarlet and three other survivors there to escape the chaotic green zone with him before the military inevitably exterminates them with the infected.
Doyle subsequently leads the group through the empty streets towards the District One perimeter, trying to fight off snipers shooting at them along the way although two of the three other survivors are killed along the way. Just as the Air Cavalry arrive to firebomb District One, Doyle, Andy, Scarlet, Tammy and Sam (the remaining other survivor) escape over the District One perimeter just as the green zone is firebombed and destroyed and thousands there killed. The generals watch District One burn from in their bunker, but Stone also sees that a large number of infected have survived the firebombing and are escaping into London. As dawn arrives, Doyle and the other four survivors travel across an empty and dilapidated London to Regent's Park to be airlifted to safety by Flynn when he comes to Doyle. As Scarlet and Doyle discuss how they ended up turning against the military and how Scarlet saved Tammy and Andy because she believes they may have inherited their mother's immunity to the symptoms of the Rage virus, Tammy and Andy think about all that has happened, and Tammy admis she doesn't believe Alice has survived this time.
Flynn warns Doyle over the radio of the surviving infected loose in London, and a large horde of the infected then arrive at Regent's Park as Flynn flies to the Park for Doyle by helicopter. When Flynn sees Doyle has rescued civilians, he refuses to take them with them to safety, especially when Doyle wants Flynn to take them across the English Channel to safety in Europe. As the infected attack, Flynn is forced to leave when Sam grabs onto his helicopter in a panic, though not before Flynn mows a majority of the attacking infected to shreds using his helicopter's rotor blades. Doyle, Scarlet, Andy and Tammy flee back into London from the remaining infected, and Flynn instructs Don over the radio to abandon the others and meet Flynn at Wembley Stadium for pickup. When the military begin pumping nerve gas into London, Doyle, Scarlet and the Harris siblings take refuge from the gas in a van as the gas kills off the infected pursuing them. After the gas has killed the infected, when Doyle sees soldiers armed with flamethrowers approaching, he goes out to push the car by jump-starting, but is killed in the process when the soldiers see and incinerate him with their flamethrowers.
Scarlet tries to avoid the military as she drives Tammy and Andy through London, until an air attack forces the trio to abandon the van and flee into the London Underground. There, Scarlet tries to guide Tammy and Andy through the dark Underground with Doyle's rifle's night-vision scope. However, while guiding the siblings down an escalator, the three get separated when Andy and Tammy fall down the stairs. Scarlet manages to find Tammy, but the former is just afterwards attacked and beaten to death by an infected. Elsewhere in the Underground, Andy wanders out onto a dark platform, where the infected that killed Scarlet comes across and attacks him. Tammy then arrives, armed with the rifle, as the infected bites Andy to her horror. When Tammy catches the infected's attention, she sees to her horror that it's Don. The infected Don then attacks Tammy, forcing her to shoot and kill her father. Just afterwards, a bitten Andy flees from Tammy into a dark tunnel as Tammy follows him. When the Rage virus doesn't take Andy over, Tammy looks at Andy and sees his left eye is turning bloodshot just as Alice's was, showing that Andy has indeed inherited their mother's immunity and become a carrier of the virus.
Andy and Tammy subsequently head out of the Underground together and go to Wembley Stadium, where they find Flynn waiting with his helicopter for Doyle. When Flynn learns that Andy and Tammy are the only survivors and Doyle is dead, he reluctantly decides to airlift the two kids to safety as Doyle had asked of him. Flynn airlifts Andy and Tammy in his helicopter across London and out of infected Britain across the Channel, towards Europe. Twenty-eight days later, Flynn's helicopter is empty and abandoned somewhere in France with someone calling for help over the chopper's radio. A horde of infected are then shown running out of a Metro exit in Paris towards the Eiffel Tower, revealing that the Rage virus has now spread to mainland Europe.
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During the outbreak of the rage virus in England, Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife, Alice (Catherine McCormack) hide in a country house with four other people. Don and Alice are happy that their two children are on a school trip to Spain and thus away from the disaster. They allow a young boy to enter the house but the infected have followed him and break in. The others are killed. Don abandons Alice to save himself.
Twenty eight weeks later, the infected have all starved to death. An American-led NATO force has secured parts of London and is now allowing the return of English citizens who had been abroad during the outbreak. Among them are Don and Alice's children, Tammy and Andy (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton). Everyone lives in the Green Zone, a secured area on the Isle of Dogs, a peninsula on the East End of London. Snipers patrol the rooftops in case of another outbreak. Leaving the Green Zone is forbidden because troops are still cleaning up the corpses that have been rotting for six months. Don manages one of the apartment buildings in the zone. He tells Tammy and Andy that he tried to save their mother but there was no hope. Tammy and Andy decide to sneak out into London and visit their old home to retrieve personal items. There, Andy discovers Alice in the attic, delirious but alive.
The NATO soldiers take Alice back to the Green Zone. An Army medical officer, Scarlet (Rose Byrne), discovers an old bite wound on her and does a blood test. Alice has the rage virus teeming in her blood but is immune to its effects. However she is a carrier who could infect others with her saliva or blood. The commanding officer, Stone (Idris Elba), orders Alice executed even though she could hold the secret to curing the virus. Meanwhile, Don sneaks into where Alice is being kept. Tammy and Andy had bitterly accused him of abandoning her and he wants to explain himself. She tells him she loves him. They kiss tenderly and Don is infected with the virus. Becoming an enraged madman, he crushes Alice's skull and escapes into the Green Zone, killing several soldiers and infecting others.
Realizing that Andy and Alice shared a genetic quirk that might make him immune to the virus's effects, Scarlet rescues Tammy and Andy. The Army has moved quickly to contain the infection, herding the residents of the Green Zone into safe rooms. Andy is separated from Tammy and Scarlet and placed in a different room with other residents. However, Don has been hiding in this room and attacks the crowd, spreading the virus. Andy escapes through an air vent. The panicked residents, along with the infected, are allowed onto the streets of the Green Zone. The snipers are told to kill everyone. Scarlet and Tammy make it into a storehouse along with Andy and a few others, including one of the snipers, Doyle (Jeremy Renner), who abandoned his post when he could not bring himself to kill Andy. He tells them that the Army will kill them too unless they can escape the city.
He leads the survivors through the streets. Unbeknownst to them, Don is following. Doyle makes contact with a friendly helicopter pilot, Flynn (Harold Perrineau), who tells them to get out of the Green Zone as soon as possible, as the area is to be firebombed. They make it into a pedestrian tunnel under the river and barely escape the firestorm. Meanwhile, about fifty other infected survive the firestorm and break through the perimeter of the Green Zone into London.
Doyle and his group make it to a park and rest. Scarlet tells him that Tammy and Andy could provide a cure for the rage virus and thus are more important than either Scarlet or Doyle. Flynn radios Doyle to wait for the helicopter in Regents Park. When he arrives, Flynn refuses to take anyone other than Doyle. But when the infected appear, he flies his helicopter into the throng, eviscerating many of them. Doyle and Scarlet take Tammy and Andy into the city. They are to meet Flynn at Wembley Stadium, where he will fly them to safety on the other side of the English Channel.
The four of them dodge the infected. Soldiers are killing the infected with poison gas and flamethrowers. Scarlet and Doyle know the Army will assume they are infected and kill them all, too. Scarlet, Tammy and Andy get into a car. Scarlet pops the clutch while Doyle pushes the car, jump starting it. As they drive away, the soldiers incinerate Doyle. Avoiding helicopters, Scarlet drives the car into a subway station. They decide to follow the train tracks to Wembley. Because it is pitch dark, Scarlet uses the night-sight on Doyle's rifle to guide them, but they are separated when Tammy and Andy trip over corpses on the escalator. Tammy and Scarlet try to find Andy but suddenly Don appears and beats Scarlet to death with Doyle's rifle. He then pursues Andy, tackles him and bites him. Tammy shoots Don and saves Andy, who is immune like his mother, but is covered in infected blood. The children continue to Wembley Stadium and meet Flynn. He can't bring himself to shoot two children, so he flies them across the English Channel and out of Britain.
No one alive knows that Andy is immune but can still infect others. The Rage virus has now been transported off the British island, out of the natural containment which for 28 weeks has kept the virus from spreading.
Cut to 28 days later. A crashed helicopter with the radio receiving a message of distress from a man with a French accent. Then a crowd of infected run through a subway tunnel, they emerge into the light, they run towards the Eiffel Tower.