Instead of being housed in a building or a bunker or a walled-in city, the remnants of humanity in Snowpiercer, a violent but quite creative apocalyptic sci-fi flick from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho, get packed on to a massive train that travels around on a globe-spanning track, never stopping. All just to stay out of the cold.
Not your ordinary cold, mind you. For nearly two decades, the train has allowed those who survived to avoid the sub-zero temperatures of an ice age created by our attempt to counteract global warming. The poor inhabit the tail section, the rich live up front. Fed up with their dreary existence, the tail-section inhabitants rebel and, led by a grime-faced Chris Evans, fight their way toward the front.
Who can blame them? The tail section is a cramped and filthy place where the people subsist on gelatinous protein bars (the actual ingredients of which will gross you out) and get high on a drug made out of the train’s industrial waste. Plus, the front-train people just up and take tail-section children—the precise event that sparks the tail-section rebellion—and, as punishment, front-section soldiers will stick a tail-section person’s arm outside the train until it freezes solid.
Joon-ho, who also made the terrific monster movie The Host, gives it all a superbly peculiar feel, inserting interesting characters and obstacles into what would otherwise have been just a series of brutal confrontations. Things like front-section children with guns, a bloody skirmish in the dark, a drugged-out engineer (Joon-ho-flick regular Song Kang-ho) and a front-section executive (Tilda Swinton) who keeps the tail-section people in line.
And Swinton’s performance definitely qualifies as interesting. Her role was originally written for a man, and she kind of looks like one here, sporting big glasses and fake buck teeth. She entertainingly exudes a nebbish but indignant air, hiding behind the soldiers at her side while effectively scolding the tail-section people for straying out of their proper place. (Evans himself does fiercely-determined well, and Jamie Bell, as his sidekick of sorts, lends the action a mischievous spirit.)
More than anything, the film is a triumph of art direction. As the tail-sectioners head forward (some of them perishing along the way), they encounter a different environment in each car. One contains a school, another an aquarium, another a greenhouse, another a club, and so on. The most interesting car is perhaps the most forward one, which houses the train’s “perpetual-motion” engine and its creator (Ed Harris), a man who goes to horrific lengths to keep the thing running.
For sure some will rail against some of the physics and plot points, like what the tail-section people hope to accomplish with their actions, or how the train has managed to not derail in all this time. And Evans’ confronting of Harris has Harris spouting reams of exposition and his character’s philosophy, and so drags on a little too long. Don’t let such concerns concern you. Just leave your logic cap at the door, climb aboard and enjoy the ride. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 10/21/14
