If you have Netflix, watch this movie immediately. Its that simple. As soon as they end credits started rolling, and Marco Beltramis wonderful score kicked in, I wanted to start the movie over and experience Snowpiercer again. Thats how great this movie is, and the ride it delivers is tremendous. Its films like these that restore faith in modern day action films. If you took The Raid, tossed it into a blender with the likes of Equilibrium and put the story aboard a train with Chris Evans at the helm . . . you have an idea of where Snowpiercer is headed. As the story goes, an attempt to retcon global warming with chemicals has left the planet in arctic shock. Nothing survives outside. Incidentally, a man with the will and the way built an almost self-sustaining train before the world went to shit. This train continuously circles the globe and keeps the passengers inside alive. After nearly two decades, social classes have been established and those left at the back of the train find themselves the boot of societys body. Bullied around and with almost no means to fight back, Curtis (Chris Evans) receives cryptic messages offering help in the event of a riot. This film chronicles the plight of the lower class as the fight their way from car to car in an attempt to take over the train and free themselves. This Orwell-ian tale has been told before, but never quite like this. Going in, I immediately started second-guessing the plot and buckled in for what I imagine would be a lot of build up and character development before anything broke out. Im always happy to be proved wrong in these cases. What director Bong Joon-Ho is exceptionally skilled at is delivering the character development in small doses and spreading it throughout the entire film. This man wastes no time getting to the action. Speaking of the action, it is night and day compared to the crap were used to seeing out there. Well choreographed, inventive and most importantly, tense. After the first hour, I had no idea who was going to happen and who was going to live or die. Not only does that demonstrated a mastery of establishing characters that you care about, but it makes each encounter a nail-biting one. The script and the cast do such a great job of conveying so much through such a short amount of time. As our heroes traverse from car to car, youre on the edge of your seat in anticipation of what they might run into next. Speaking of the cast, Joon-Ho has assembled quite a team. While Chris Evans is front and center, and gives one of the best performances of his career, hes surrounded by the likes of Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Song Kang-Ho and Ewen Bremner. You may not know them by name, but they are all faces youve seen in other films and they create their own identities efficiently in the small amount of time theyre given. Then theres Tilda Swinton, who chews the scenery up as the voice of the leader. Her character lends the film a great deal of satirical humor without letting the film fall into a parody. Unfortunately, the film does have a flaw towards the end with a large dose of exposition. The film was moving at such a great pace and did such a great job up to that point of telling its story, that it was a shame to go a little Matrix Reloaded on us, if you will. That small hiccup aside, Snowpiercer is an action thriller of which Ive never quite seen. Its off-kilter in the best way. I cant recall the last time I cared this much for the characters in an action film and how badly I wanted them to succeed in this seemingly suicidal mission. This is not only the best action picture of the year, but is sure to be one of the best of this decade. 9/10
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 22:38:27 +0000
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