Edward Soup – Google

Train to Busan was always a favorite of mine, so it was exciting to hear that a sequel was in the works, Peninsula is the latest installment in the ‘Train to Busan’ franchise after Seoul Station/Seoulyeok which functioned as a prequel, does Peninsula hold up to its predecessors or does it just fall flat like a pancake? Train to Busan is one of my favorite movies since if you really analyze it deeply there’s minor themes and commentary on the South Korean government, class division, and a whole lot more than that, as well as showcasing a bit of South Korean culture to the world. It also includes a cast of characters we can root for that develop as the plot goes on. While still being able to enjoy it as a simple zombie action movie, it carries more weight than that, which is why I enjoy it so much. Peninsula on the other hand is a Mad Max copy pasted story where the characters are as stale and cliché as they can be, where nothing happens for most of its 2-hour runtime, you would think is a stand-alone movie rather than being connected to one of the greatest zombie movies of all time. I also felt that the transition from melee weapons to guns hurt the sense of danger you feel, rather than being scared for the cookie cutter characters since they might be bitten at any time in combat, you just feel that they can just ‘spray and pray’ with their M-16 rifles hitting a bunch of zombies like it was Call of Duty on the Xbox 360, speaking of which, the plot armor in this movie is soooo THICK, the brother in law had so many moments where it just feels like he was Bruce Almighty with that Immortality, and when someone dies, It feels SO forced, like when the grandfather died, couldn’t he just, oh I dunno, DUCK. Coming from the same director as the first two (Yeon Sang-Ho) you would expect the same magic he puts into his other movies, I didn’t really get to feel that in Peninsula, in Don Mclean’s words, “Something touched me deep inside The day the music (magic) died.”