Snowpiercer Review
Most of Hollywood should dream of one day making a movie this good.
My life, much like this movie, is a study in contrasts. My last review was the new Transformers movie by Michael Bay, the Dr. Mengele of movie directors. This week I am doing Snowpiercer, a movie that is to 99% of science fiction movies what those movie are to swimming in an open sewer for 165 minutes (still preferable to most Bay flicks IMO). I was pretty well astounded at how this South Korean film could hit the mark so well and so perfectly.
Over the past few years I have become a fan of Korean film. Some is good, some is bad, but a lot of it is brilliant. This one falls into the last category and then sets up base camp to travel to other peaks of brilliance. Really, really good. In what can laughingly be called my movie reviewing career I have only once given a film all stars and no black holes (Argo, if you are curious) and unless I have a brain transplant in the hour and a half that it takes me to write this I will have my second.
Then of course there is the massive controversy between visionary director Joon-ho Boon and heavy handed studio executive Harvey Weinstien. Harvey didn’t like this film and wanted to cut 20 minutes off. He also (I did research this) wanted a voice over narration at the beginning and end that would have been totally unnecessary (and would have most earned a black hole from me). Has he never seen the difference between the theatrical release of Blade Runner, where the narration sits on the film like an 800 lb cat sitting on your face, and the Directors Cut where the film flows naturally and the director assumes that his audience is more intelligent than the dinosaurs who died to make his film? The simplification of a movie story is a sure sign that the director and/or executives have sneering contempt for their audience and think we spend all day eating, mating, and throwing feces at each other (for me it’s certainly not ALL day).
Having said that I cannot also endorse a complete lack of control over directors. The Matrix was brilliant but when the studio removed all governors from the Wachowski siblings we were stuck with Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. Terrance Malick had total control when he did Tree of Life and excreted a convoluted, pointless, boring grindfest. George Clooney decided he needed to prove his worth with a massive vanity piece (not to mention a vanity film) and came out with the meh-tastic Monuments Men. Sometimes artistic oversight can be a great boon to an otherwise out of control production.
However, when Weinstein’s version with the voice over and 20 minutes cut were screened back to back with the Boon version the directors cut was much better received (I went into this film trying to figure out what scenes could be reasonably cut and couldn’t find a one. For the record this film runs 126 minutes and feels like 75). At that point a man who wanted to make money and didn’t have a massive engorged ego would throw up his hands and say “Well, this movie made massive money overseas and my American test audiences seem to like it so sure, let’s just release it and see what happens.” That is not what happened however. Weinstein decided the punish Boon and all of the English speaking world by only releasing the film in about 100 art house theaters and having a direct to video release date in a few weeks, ensuring that no large multiplexes would want to see it.
The sad part is this evil plan is succeeding. The theaters that showed it from the beginning did very well per theater, but this movie will never show the gross sales it should. It has been extended by nearly every theater and expanded out across the country, but spoilsport Harvey is successfully injected a large number of flies into the ointment. Do us all a favor Harvey and stick to the frickin’ sharks with lasers on their heads (at least when all evidence points to the fact that you aren’t as great as you think you are).
I suppose I should address the other elephant in the room and that is the massive political message. This might be another reason why the Weinstein Co. has been trying to shoot this one down but if you ever want to see a microcosm of how the class structure in our society works this is the film for you. Most films addressing the economic disparity in our society and the fact that the 1% live like gods and the rest of us eat bugs and live off their leftovers are verboten these days. Not sure why, but perhaps the fact that most of Hollywood is firmly ensconced in that 1% might have something to do with it. No one who is super rich wants to remind the unwashed masses of how they walk on our backs and exclude us from the first class cars. However if this was a motivator for Weinstein the world is a scarier place than it was a week ago for me.
The story starts off 17 years after an experiment to reverse global warming goes horribly wrong and freezes the entire planet (I was kind of expecting more of a eco message here but Boon wisely opted to pass on it). The only known survivors of the film all live on a super train that goes around the world forever. The train is strictly regulated into classes by what kind of ticket you bought in the beginning. The first class passengers live at the front of the train and have lives of amazing extravagance. The economy passengers live in the middle and are like middle class workers and security guards. The tail of the train is where all the freeloaders got on board and live like refuges in a 3rd world concentration camp. Control over them is oppressive and totalitarian. They all live like sewer rats, eating green protein bars (no, not quite Soylent Green).
Curtis (Chris Evans-Captain America, What’s Your Number, The Losers) lives in the tail with local guru Gilliam (John Hurt-Hellboy, Alien, V for Vendetta. Alien image and the mantra of my life courtesy of the movie t shirt category), Tanya (Octavia Spencer-The Help, Being John Malovich, Fruitvale Station), Edgar (Jamie Bell-the Adventures of TinTin, Jumper, King Kong), and a slew of other people I can’t really sort the credits for including Tanya’s son. Every day they get a shipment of protein bars and Curtis seems to be getting messages from someone near the front.
He is planning a revolution. There is a dispute when Tanya’s and another kid is kidnapped by the front and a shoe is thrown at Mason (Tidla Swinton-Moonrise Kingdom, I am Love, Burn After Reading), a minor official. The thrower has his arm frozen off while Mason delivers what might end up being one of the best film monologs of the last 10 years. However during the dispute she accidentally reveals that the guard guns are out of bullets.
Curtis uses that fact to his advantage and the revolution starts. At that point the lower class passengers riot and movie up car to car. His informant has told him of a prisoner who is a security expert and can get the doors open. Curtis breaks out Namgoong Minsu (Kang-Ho Song-the Host, The Good The Bad The Weird, Thirst) and offers him drugs to help. He insists on also breaking out Yona (Ah-Sung Ko-the Host, A Brand New Life, God of Study).
At that point the movie becomes what we in the nerd world would call a dungeon crawl. The crew moves from train car to train car, steadily increasing in cleanliness and luxuries. Each time the door opens you don’t know if you will find an empty car, a luxury garden, or 100 axe wielding maniacs. They manage to capture Mason and she agrees to help them move towards the Engine and meet with Wilford, the man who build the train. They stop off at a school where kids are taught to never leave the train. Things go badly and eventually only Curtis, Namgoong, and Yona reach the front where Curtis gets to have dinner with the enigmatic recluse Wilford (Ed Harris-The Rock, Pain and Gain, the Abyss).
The stars:
Great story extremely well told. Two stars. Visually stunning, with shocking scene changes as they move up the train. Think Blade Runner meets Hero. Two stars. Excellent acting all around. Chris Evans has never been better. One star. Tilda Swinton in particular nailed it, and her speech was a serious highlight. One star. Brutal action without being gory. Extremely well done. One star. The whole movie was extremely immersive. One star. I love a movie that is not afraid to stick with a non-happy ending. This film was dark and made no bones about it. You don’t often see pregnant women dying to thrown knives. One star. I love dystopian future sci fi. One star. Awesome camera work, especially given the fairly limited $39MM budget. One star. Pacing was phenomenal. Not a second wasted and two hours and six minutes flew by. One star. An excellent movie well worth your time and money. Two stars. Total: fourteen stars.
The black holes:
Nope. Still can’t think of any.
So 14 stars and one of my best reviewed movies to date. You are a fool if you let this one slip by unwatched in a theater. Please go see it. You will not regret it, and we need to show Hollywood that they aren’t our parents. Support this film. Date movie? In the sense that if you have a girl you like a lot and want to expose her to an awesome movie yes. However this film will not get her clothes off unless she is really turned on by quality cinema. Bathroom break? I refuse to recommend a scene. You don’t want to miss a second, and if you cannot hold it for 126 minutes this film is worth wetting yourself.
Thanks for reading. I have been dumping on films lately so I am very glad I got to gush all over this one. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments or thoughts on this film please post them here. Off topic questions or suggestions can be emailed to [email protected]. Thanks and have a great day.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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