THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

In the four years since the events of Train to Busan, the deadly virus that lead to the Zombie outbreak in South Korea has spread across the entire Korean peninsula. Following the rapid evacuation of the infected lands, a truck containing twenty million US dollars was left behind. A Chinese gang pressures four Korean citizens living in Hong Kong to return to the unliving hell they thought they escaped and retrieve it for them.

MY VERDICT:

This large-scale, Zombie-action sequel to 2016's smash-hit Train to Busan, is definitely a high-budget and high-quality Zombie movie that I recommend to fans of the predecessor but, sadly, it fails to live up to the immense expectation put upon it. It starts out brilliantly with an army evacuation of the Korean peninsula and an impressive scene involving an outbreak of those infected with the Zombie virus on one of the escape vessels. After making it to safety but realising the rest of the world does not really want them, a group of Korean refugees who thought they were safe are pressured back into the terrible land of the dead. As the unhappy band scouts around for their mission objective, guns sweeping back and forth as they dodge between wrecked cars, moving with caution along deserted streets that are ominously quiet, the tension builds wonderfully. When the group inevitably makes a mistake, the infected charge out and pinpoint combat begins - the opening stages reminded me a lot of 28 Weeks Later and came across incredibly cool. The latter half of the movie, unfortunately, gets bogged down in a mixture of Mad Max-style wasteland rogues and Land of the Dead where a rebellious military unit uses Zombies and captured survivors in bizarre games of who can stay alive the longest. It's not in any way bad but does show the difference between the two movies in the series; Train to Busan is all about confusion and survival against overwhelming odds whereas Peninsula is about combat and taking back what is yours in a world where humanity is far worse than the undead. The Zombies are, unless you make a serious mistake, not that much of a threat anymore and, consequently, feel underused in this Zombie movie. The film does try to make up for this by portraying the ravenous undead as a deadly tool that can be used to defeat your enemies - absolutely loving showing off the inventive ways in which this can be done, a welcome unique twist on the more common 'shoot them all' approach of most Zombie flicks. However, perhaps my biggest criticism of this movie is its heavy use of CGI (computer generated imagery); especially in the many high-speed, over-the-top car chases.