Peninsula (2020)

The derelict city almost completely abandoned, looking like a vast car graveyard where the only ones occupying it are the undead diseased zombies, a bunch of gun-toting dirtbags picking off whoever is also stuck on the peninsula or sicking zombies on them in their own sick arena for kicks, and a small selection of decent people trying to avoid the dirtbags and zombies in the hopes of finding escape...I didn't actually mind this too much! Now, this is just not Train to Busan to me, but expecting that I just wasn't. How do you follow that, really? Still, there is a Mad Max vehicle chase through cluttered streets (lots of tents, left-behind cars and trucks, trash, and zombies/dead), plentiful machine gun fights, and a shit-ton of CGI.

I did find a couple of heart-tugging dramatic scenes that got me: Dong-won Gang enters the lion's den to rescue his friend as the gang and zombies are up against him, almost getting him out until the gang leader shoots him and the little girl begging her grandpa not to die after he takes a bullet in the back for her. Oh, and the use of bright lights (a little motorcar toy and fireworks) to throw off zombies...I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

A lot of this is beyond credibility, but I was able to surrender some of that. I mean, it didn't disappoint with its action, even if it lacked dramatic punch. Characterizations weren't as strong, but I did like the girls, especially the one who seemed to be a stunt driver amazingly finding ways out of entrapments throughout a decimated city. Jung-hyun as the mother packs a machine gun right alongside Gang. The villains are your basic sociopathic monsters out for themselves, going after others for sport.