Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

"Apart from a few chilling moments—a reveal of hundreds of zombies pressed up against glass just in front of its heroes, for instance—Peninsula squanders the potential that lies in the return to a world lost to the undead. As opposed to a constant existential threat, the zombies’ presence is mainly used to increase the film’s tempo arbitrarily—as CGI creatures to splatter en masse with CGI cars or a chaotic addition to human versus human gunfights. Gone are paranoid tropes (Is this person bitten? Is this room safe?) in favour of fairly unspectacular action, returning writer-director Yeon Sang-ho seeming more interested in Incheon’s soldiers-gone-mad survivors (who frankly are not depicted as all that interesting)."

"The film has clipped along at a reasonably brisk pace until this point, only to downshift into a laughably protracted slow-motion finale, full of gratuitous lens flares and overwrought strings."

"Yeon eventually just throws his hands up and surrenders to the cheesy spectacle of it all with a frenzied third act that finds the entire cast in a death race to the border. It’s here that Yeon stops being able to afford his own ambition, and the film’s budget suddenly feels like a rubber band stretched over a hula-hoop."

"Peninsula feels like the work of an artist who misunderstood his past triumph, squandering his talent for the sake of a pandering, halfhearted encore."

"While the first Train To Busan was an affecting, character-driven tale of grief and redemption, Peninsula flounders in generic spectacle. Even fans may wonder if there are any bones left to pick on this franchise."

"Peninsula is a sturdy, but almost heroically derivative cash-in on a still-brilliant original. If you like the genre as much as I do, you'll be happy enough with how it's turned out."