Colony

Story: Kwon Se-jeong (Jun Ji-hyun) is brought along by her ex-husband Han Gyoo-seong (Go Soo) to a presentation at a biotech company, where she is supposed to land a new job. The company's CEO presents how, in the future, it might be possible for humans to communicate with one another without words, much like ants and certain species of fungi do. After the presentation, the CEO is informed by the police that a terror threat has been received from former employee Seo Young-chul (Koo Hyo-hwan). Sure enough, Young-chul visits his former boss in his office shortly afterward and injects him with a mysterious liquid. Subsequently, the CEO loses all humanity and infects others in the building with the virus through a bite. Very quickly, almost everyone in the building becomes infected with the virus. The police lock down the building, and aside from a few students, a police officer, security guard Choi (Ji Chang-wook) and his sister (Kim Shin-rok), there are only a handful of other survivors left. Se-jeong soon discovers that the infected exhibit a kind of hive mind. Every new experience these undead gain during the hunt is immediately shared among them. Se-jeong is a biotechnology professor and therefore comes up with a few potential tactics for escaping the infected. Above all, though, it is crucial to find Young-chul, as he carries the antidote to the virus within himself. Yet the swarm grows smarter by the minute ...

Review: The trailer for "Colony" delivered some visually impressive imagery. The prospect of seeing zombies operate outside the familiar cliches as a kind of swarm certainly piqued curiosity. Still, a slight fear lingered with me that the trailer might have already spoiled the best scenes and that director Yeon Sang-ho wouldn't be able to live up to critics' expectations. Unfortunately, at least for me, that turned out to be true. Looking at most audience reactions, people seem quite satisfied with the final product, and how happy you are after the credits roll really depends heavily on your expectations. Strictly speaking, however, the director gets in his own way. As a B-movie with an impressive budget — because that is exactly what the film feels like — "Colony" can certainly be enjoyable. Yet since the director also intends to give his story more depth, his film has to be measured against whether it actually succeeds in doing so. And the answer to that is a resounding no.

With "Train to Busan", Yeon Sang-ho still holds a certain cult status. Because of this, people seem happy to overlook the fact that he already disappointed with its mediocre quasi-sequel "Peninsula". Added to this is general zombie fatigue, as almost every story seems to have been told already. Accordingly, Yeon takes a few interesting set pieces — such as fungi as the basis for the zombie virus, massive hordes of the undead that gladly use each other as ladders, and a hive mind — blending "The Last of Us", "World War Z", and "Pluribus" in a rather unsubtle way. Right from the start, there is a nagging fear that this will hardly be executed in a rewarding manner: first off, we have the disgraced scientist who takes revenge on his former boss with a virus, which, naturally, has to signal its potential danger through a bright neon-green color, and wants to destroy the entire world in his delusions of omnipotence.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to a few characters inside the building where the horror is about to unfold. There are several familiar faces among the cast, but front and center is, of course, Jun Ji-hyun ("Assassination"), who appears in a leading role after another multi-year hiatus from the big screen. With her in particular, a problem becomes all too apparent that plagues all the characters: the script has no idea what to do with the individuals. Sure, Se-jeong is a biotech expert and can guide the survivors because she knows her stuff and quickly figures out how to trick the hive mind. That also leads to an interesting scene or two. Beyond that, though, we don't learn much about her as a human being, and what little we do find out is bluntly thrown in our faces by her ex-husband. Her relationship with him is equally bland and ultimately irrelevant, as becomes clear after the intro. Joining them are countless other figures who could almost just as easily be replaced by the very cardboard cutouts the survivors use to decoy the zombies.

Perhaps also worth mentioning are the security guard and his wheelchair-bound sister. Yet not much is done with them either. Instead, there is someone who turns into a new antagonist out of grief and rage. But this emotional transformation receives zero groundwork, making it feel jarring and completely out of step with what we previously learned about the person's character. Then there is also a schoolgirl who is being bullied, and another who is almost single-handedly responsible for numerous things going wrong and people in the group occasionally dying. This utter (deliberate) incompetence really ought to be punished immediately with expulsion from the group or death. Using such individuals as a plot device to trigger the next disaster is simply frustrating and a very cheap approach to boot. The schoolgirl is a bully, does nothing but whine, and nobody confronts her about the fact that she is responsible for several deaths. By comparison, the actual main antagonist, portrayed by Koo Kyo-hwan ("Escape"), almost comes across as a nice guy. To be fair, the villain is also a terribly cheap caricature, even if he actually has an agenda that isn't all that absurd at its core.

All wars and conflicts are rooted in miscommunication, something that would be eradicated if humanity were equipped with a hive mind. This is where director and screenwriter Yeon wants to score points on a narrative level. That said, Vince Gilligan already demonstrated in "Pluribus" what philosophical and existential dimensions lie within this theme, whereas Yeon doesn't even scratch the surface. At least this story element gives him a tool to direct the zombies, especially since the villain can even see through their eyes. At the same time, this leads to scenes where you can only marvel at how unspeakably inferior everyone else is to him intellectually — even our heroine, who calls herself a professor. It actually hurts to watch how foolishly everyone behaves here, even if that perhaps simply comes with the territory of the genre. The film's major saving grace is, of course, the zombies, and the finale really cranks up the action dial once more, while also getting absurd (in a rather enjoyable way). In those moments, you can definitely have fun, even if "Colony" is far less violent than you might expect. The CGI blood might be to blame for that. On the plus side, the sets become increasingly covered in white slime, illustrating the progressing chain of infection, and some of the unusual body contortions offer something visually fresh. Bottom line, though, you're left with exceptionally flat characters, a B-movie plot and emotional detachment. Still entertaining overall, but for me personally, one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

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