Bill & Ted / Korean Zombies

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC (2020)
Director: Dean Parisot
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal,
Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine
Running Time: 92m

 

Since everything is still being either remade or sequelled why not Bill and Ted? The amiable dufuses (dufi?) did gift pop culture with both gestures and catch-phrases - “Be excellent to each other", "Party on Dudes!” - but the two films seemed very much a product of their times. Can the bodacious duo stand an update?

 

Well, yes and no. This sequel, despite its ominous-sounding title, is just as light and sweet as the earlier films, catching up with the guitar-playing boys of The Wyld Stallyns (that's “Wild Stallions” for those not au fait with Bill 'n' Ted speak), who are now dads with lookalike daughters. They are also still married to the princesses from the fourteenth century.

 

But all is not well. The song they were meant to write that would united the world in peace and joy turned out not to be the one everyone was celebrating at the end of the second film. So Bill and Ted, increasingly unsuccessful, have spent their lives trying and failing to write that fabled song. And the princesses now want couples counselling...

 

All this leads to more trips through time, as Bill and Ted discover various iterations of their future selves, giving Keanu and Alex Winter a chance to ham it up most enjoyably as heavy metallers, effete English musicians and others outrageous stereotypes.

 

Meanwhile the daughters head off, much as the boys did in the first film, to assemble a crack band from throughout history to play on The Song. That one of the film's high-points is Mozart jamming with Jimi Hendrix (“genius recognises genius”) just about sums up proceedings.

 

So, bottom line, it's not as funny as the previous films though the reappearance of bass-player Death helps and the addition of a neurotic killer robot is a big plus. The most you can really say is that it retains the essential sweetness which made the original films such a dim-witted pleasure in the first place. And maybe that's enough.

 

 

PENINSULA (2020)

Director: Sang-ho Yeon

Stars: Dong-Won Gang, Jung-hyun Lee, Re Lee

Runtime: 116 min

 

 Zombie movies? I've kind given up on zombie movies. There have been so many of them and they just keep coming, slowly maybe but more and more. And just when you think they've stopped there's another one. And another.

Yep, strange as it seems, zombie moves have now become a metaphor for zombie movies. And even as the on-screen zombies started moving faster so the movies arrived ever more quickly...

One of the last ones I enjoyed before giving up on them was Train To Busan which I think I really only watched because it's South Korean and I like South Korean movies. That was a bunch of trashy fun, entertainingly claustrophobic in its train setting and turning a few new tricks despite the proscribed nature of the genre.

So, given this is a sequel and, most importantly, made by the same director, I thought “what the hell” let's settle in for a couple of hours of flesh-eating action...

Things kick in four years after the original film. South Korea has now been cut off and taken over by zombies. Into this mayhem a survivor from the first outbreak is tasked with returning to retrieve a van-load full of cash. So with a small team he heads back in.

What follows is more a men-on-a-mission film, closer in spirit to Escape From New York as they discover that not all is as it seems with the van and that not everyone has left town. Many are still living surrounded by zombies and they of course hold gladiatorial tournaments and the like. Think 28 Days Later, Think Mad Max Thunderdome, do not think something original is about to happen.

There are, naturally, some imaginative set-pieces, the odd novel method of killing, and all the things that fanboys praise in zombie films. There does not appear to be any social message or societal comment on offer, the things that the rest of us hope for.

I could tell you more but I find I am losing my will to live even thinking further about this film. It really is rubbish, nothing you haven't seen 1000 times before if you've even seen one zombie flick. Add to that the sudden and very silly outbreaks of melodrama which tend to characterise Korean film and you have something a little hard to handle. If you get to the ending I suspect you will have your face in your hands in frustration.

Of course a better approach would be to get riotously drunk with some friends and laugh the whole way through. Unfortunately I was alone and alcohol-free for the course of the movie.