Snowpiercer

2013 post-apocalyptic action movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Humanity lives on a train that circles the globe once again after the dumbasses shot chemicals into the sky and caused a new Ice Age. Folks in the back of the train--where the underfed and miserable poor people are packed--decide that it's time for a coup and make plans to rush to the front to take over Snowpiercer.

Snowpiercer's kind of a dumb name for a movie, so I was skeptical when I heard that this was good. I guess that's what the train is named, but I don't remember it being mentioned in the movie. The titular train is all CGI when they decide to show it off, which isn't very often. Around 97% of this happens on the inside of the train cars, and when there are exterior shots, they seem to be there just to show us that we shouldn't complain about all the train interior action because they're a little dopey. Some of the iced-over views from the train windows are interest and strangely beautiful though. I ended up liking this movie after thinking I'd hate it after the first ten minutes or so. However, it really is uneven with all kinds of cool ideas mixed in with a lot of dopiness. The general idea, though it seems somehow derivative, is fun in that depressing kind of way, and a lot of the ideas for what was going on in the train cars--especially the education one--were inspiring. There's a little dark humor in this that keeps things interesting even when it threatens to just devolve into a bunch of scenes featuring slow-motion, close-quartered brouhaha-ing. A somewhat fearless script, the kind where every character possibly expendable except for the one you know isn't expendable, keeps things realistic. The cast is impressive for a movie called Snowpiercer that is all about a train called Snowpiercer, too. John Hurt gets a memorable and complex character to chew on, one that at least has half of his appendages. Ed Harris pops in to do his typical Ed Harris thing which I typically don't care that much for. Tilda Swinton pours it on pretty thickly, easily portraying one of the most interesting characters in the whole thing, and Chris "Captain America" Evans not only makes for a hunky action superstar but has the acting chops to pull off the more emotional stuff when things get a little more complex. This is an ambitious offering from Joon-ho Bong, the guy who brought us The Host, and is the kind of movie you are forced to think about no matter how stupid the action on the screen seems. It's a post-apocalyptic action movie that tries to say something about society, and that's probably the exact reason why it ends up kind of messy. You have to appreciate the effort to stuff a bunch of action movie cliches into something kind of original though, and if I saw this again, chances are the allegorical nature of it might click and cause me to like it more. I'll still hate that title though and the ending, possibly indeterminate and featuring what seemed to be Coca Cola product placement.