I uh, I was interested at the beginning. The premise seemed pretty darn interesting.

And then... oh boy. Then it descended into "In Time" but on a train. I dunno why they felt that would be a good idea... but yeah, it was some really heavy-handed nonsense. And I was constantly chuckling to myself at the mental image of large, burly, hooded men with axes, calmly shuffling through fruit orchards, elementary school classrooms, aquariums, and spas. I can't be the only one who thought that, right?

I mean, the idea of the Snowpiercer itself makes no sense. You have this train that can run forever, but... the tracks never wear out? Really? They're exposed to icy, frigid conditions... but they never bend or crack or deform in any way? Even after 17 years of constant wear and tear? Nor the wheels on the train? They're constantly in motion, for 17 years, but they never need replacing or anything? Are they made out of adamantium? See, if they'd made it a maglev train instead, where the train never actually touches the track and you avoid the wear and tear of constant friction from metal on metal contact... that'd made a little more sense.

And of course, the horrendous arctic conditions of the Earth never seem to present any problems for the tracks. They're never covered by snow or anything. If there's a buildup of ice that, let's say, creates a wall of ice on the track... the train simply speeds up and goes right through it, with nary a pause. In real life, with such a long train, I kinda see things going a bit differently, like say... immediately derailing the train with the loss of all lives aboard. Large buildups of ice can create things called icebergs, and if the Titanic has taught us anything, it's that when man's metal constructions collide with things made out of ice, ice will tend to win. So I never bought that the Snowpiercer would just ram right through the ice walls without derailing or crumpling up. That felt silly.

Of course, we also get ridiculous scenes where individuals are able to shoot through the train's glass windows with guns, even though this glass is meant to protect the train from extreme conditions that have wiped out all life on earth. You'd think such extinction-proof glass would be somewhat bulletproof? Well, apparently not. I dunno, I guess they don't make em like they used to. Also, the guns, which include an M4 and a Skorpion SMG, are apparently accurate enough to have only a few inches of deviation at several hundred yards, while being fired from a moving train. Through inches-thick glass. I was cringing hard throughout that whole idiotic scene.

But wait... maybe those nitpicks about realism don't matter. Maybe the whole movie is simply meant to be a big allegory. Well, that's true I suppose. The whole movie is definitely meant to be one big heavy-handed appeal to class warfare. "In Time" was the last one I saw that really addressed this issue, and Snowpiercer faithfully follows that awful movie's footsteps in being really blunt and obvious about everything. If I wanted someone to shove an anti-capitalist screed in my face, I could just go get one from the smelly hippy screaming on that nearby street corner. I know the movie’s adapted from a French comic book, and the French generally tend to be kooky left-leaning socialist jerks, but I still expected a bit more sophistication on the story front. Instead, it’s just… well, let’s hit the audience over the head with this sledgehammer. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

Now, here’s a fundamental issue I had with the characters in this movie. The small group led by Evans trudges along through the train towards their goal, just as the Goonies or Frodo and his companions might in their movies. But you never grow close to most of the group or get to know them. The fast, agile knife guy… remains the fast, agile knife guy. You don’t get to learn about him or know him at all. Octavia Spencer is completely wasted and never gets much of a chance to show off her acting talent before she’s killed. The Korean girl is mostly in a drug-induced stupor. There’s never a sense of that tight-kit connectedness that many other films have with small groups on a quest or adventure. There’s just not that much there for us to latch onto, outside of Evans. And when we do settle down and finally get to learn about him, it comes in the form of a bizarre, extended monologue where he talks about how babies taste best. Oh jeez. I was certainly shocked by that revelation and how the baby that was saved turned out to be his right hand guy from the beginning of the story. Yet this right hand guy had been dead for such a long time by that point in the movie that it didn’t even feel as important or emotional as it probably should have. You had to slightly rewind the movie in your mind and go “Ohhhh right, that guy from the axe fight. I sorta remember him now.” The gap between those two points in the movie really worked to dull the effectiveness of that reveal about his past.

Okay, here’s some questions I had:

Why would Chris Evans be incredibly grossed out by the idea of eating protein bars made out of insects? We’re stuck on a train protecting us from instantly freezing to death on the planet… I think I’d be happy to have any sort of protein to eat, ya know? It’s like… hey, be thankful you’re getting to eat at all. Plus, we later find out that he’s resorted to eating human flesh in the past. Given that sort of grisly history, I don’t see why he’d be so repulsed by insects. Plenty of people in the world today eat insects without complaint, and they’re not stuck on a train as the last remnants of humanity. This reaction seems completely out of place and inappropriate.

So if they always had plenty of bullets… why didn’t they bust them out right from the start? Why keep them from the guards at the back? Why send out a bunch of your men with axes when you always had bullets in reserve? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Or was that part of the plan? I mean, I thought the whole idea of the engineered revolt was to thin out the numbers of the back of the train? Or did it require Wilford to thin out his own men as well? Well, no… because Wilford went on to say that his men took higher losses than expected, therefore John Hurt had to die. Well… this seems rather foolish to lay all the blame on John Hurt, when you were the one hoarding bullets and not using them. Fuckin hell… the complicated layers of bullshit in this movie are giving me a headache.

What was up with the fish? They cut it and then they smear it on their axes and… uhhh? Was that just for the intimidation factor? I would’ve figured the sight of a bunch of shiny axes would’ve done that all by itself. Now, to be fair to the movie, I did think the axe fight on that train car was shot pretty well. There’s a nice sense of kinetic energy to the fights and it’s mostly shot in profile view which evokes a bit of Oldboy.

Now, did Wilford always have the idea that the back of the train would revolt and his thugs would lack guns and use axes and so… right before he finished his train, he went and bought up a ton of night vision goggles? Did he go and do that? So then he’d be prepared for a certain specific situation where he could turn off the lights to a train car and the train would just happen to be passing through a lengthy tunnel and all his thugs armed with axes would have a tactical advantage? Is that what happened? Cause I don’t think a normal person just decides to bring a hundred pairs of night vision goggles on a train for some random eventuality.

I hate the late twist in a movie where the big bad mastermind becomes conciliatory and tries to sway our hero to his side, even though most of the movie has established that our hero is fighting to end this villain’s reign. It always feels fake and forced. You had the Emperor trying to turn Luke in Return of the Jedi. And now here we have Ed Harris’s Wilford trying to convince Evans to come over to his side and be his successor. Why did he think that this ploy would work? We’ve seen Evans throughout the movie fighting to get to the front of the train to take Wilford down for what he’s done. Why would Wilford believe that a nice little sitdown chat would turn him to his side? These sorts of scenes never work for me and just feel ridiculous. Especially in this case, where Wilford has erected this immense solid door to his front compartment. The man is obviously extremely paranoid about other people getting into his space. Yet he just lets Evans right in because he can sense that he’s the right one for the job? Huh? Where is all this coming from? Did Wilford read some script where all this was ordained?

I do have to hand it to the director, he really didn’t mind using Ed Harris again in the role of “God” in this world, drawing inevitable comparisons to The Truman Show. That was probably intentional, I’d guess. Well… that’s quite unfortunate, since The Truman Show is a great movie, and this definitely is not.

So wait… John Hurt was secretly in cahoots with Wilford all along? And they even shared phone conversations late at night? Wha… what? How does that even make any sense? So every night, John Hurt was just secretly picking up this hidden phone with his rickety wooden stick arms and they’d just have nice hearty conversations late into the night? And nobody else in the back of that train ever heard this? Or if they did hear it, they just shrugged and went back to sleep? It was never uncovered that he was doing this, even though the back of the train is severely overcrowded and cramped? He’s just able to stealthily chat on the phone with Wilford without anybody being the wiser? Really?

Now at the end, our intrepid heroes decide to just blow the train apart and derail it and everybody pretty much dies, with the exception of the Korean girl and the little black boy. But they’re probably going to freeze to death. Except they see a polar bear, so maybe they won’t. Except they’re alone and everybody else is dead, and there’s no source of power or shelter or anything. So they’re pretty much dead. And everybody that was in the back of the train, who Evans wanted to save, they’re all dead too. Wow. What a bad ending. Given the options, I think it probably would’ve been preferable if they hadn’t gotten to the front of the train and killed nearly everyone. Life in the back of the train sucked, sure, but at least they got to live. Evans and his Korean friend just killed everybody. That’s um… not much of an achievement.

This movie is a tremendous mess. An ambitious mess. A refreshing mess, you could even say. But at the end of the day… it’s still a mess.

3/10