SNOWPIERCER

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 12:46pm

I watched this movie the other night, on demand, and I was just knocked out by it.

One of the most exciting dystopian epics I've seen since CHILDREN OF MEN. It's got great performances, a really wicked and witty sense of humor, and tons of thrilling action sequences. And it's never once predictable. Chris Evans is just sensational, carrying the film with ease. I absolutely recommend renting it on iTunes or seeing it in theaters...I hope to rent it again soon, because it's certainly something worth seeing more than once. Updated On: 7/13/14 at 12:46 PM

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 5:48pm

That's Chris Evans, not Chris Pine.

But yes - it's wonderful.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 5:50pm

Have been waiting to see this, but it seems more like a film that must be seen in in cinema rather than on demand. Plan to catch it in LA this coming weekend.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 6:06pm

I saw this in theater last weekend and I have to say I didn't like. The first hour was so dark and bleak- real doom and gloom stuff. It's so unrelenting (I guess the point) that it made for difficult viewing.

Things got more interesting as they began to make their way through the train, but the entire final sequence was a mess.

It was impossible to take the film on face value as an action adventure. I don't mind social commentary/metaphor, but come on! Talk about being bludgeoned with it!

The critics went crazy, but the only thing I liked was the art direction.

SPOILERS***********************

I wish things would have ended with the dynamite blowing off the train door before the door to the last car opened. That dinner scene was so anti-climatic and disappointing, IMO. We get it!! We all have our place in society. We shouldn't try to move that place or it will upset the status quo.

Plus did we really need to have a monologue about cannibalism??

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 6:45pm

I give Snowpiercer the same middling marks as Whizzer but for the opposite reason-- I REALLY enjoyed the first hour, loved the setup, loved the insanity of characters played by Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt and of course the beloved Tilda Swinton.

M*A*J*O*R S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S:
But when one by one each of those characters was done away with, there went my interest in the movie. On his own Chris Evans (and the talented Korean stars) held very little allure.
E*N*D S*P*O*I*L*E*R*S

As Whizzer has said, after that I had nothing but the fine art direction to keep me entertained-- which wasn't quite entertaining enough on its own.

Updated On: 7/13/14 at 06:45 PM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 7/13/14 at 8:03pm

SPOILERS**********************

Someone in a Tree- Did you feel like the deaths of the major characters felt very inconsequential? Especially Octavia's death? There was no payoff- no goodbye for the characters.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 7/14/14 at 1:57pm

Whizzer--

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW********************************************

And what discussion can we even have without spoilers galore? Yes I found the random deaths of all my favorite characters inconsequential. The worst was the first death -- of Jamie Bell's character, who was by far my favorite of the rebels. But Tilda-- good Lord, she was the most alive thing onscreen, and I couldn't fathom them killing her off before the very final few minutes. Sure, it was obvious she would be offed somewhere in the inevitable slaughter, but what a waste of great talent to lose her before the halfway mark.

SPOILERS OVER**************************

I'm seriously losing faith in the official critical consensus markers in general. So far this summer, I haven't shared the raves for SNOWPIERCER, CHEF, BOYHOOD, or now DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. (And no, I'm not a total hater-- I found lots to like in BELLE, EDGE OF TOMORROW, X-MEN, LIFE ITSELF, and even the less than raved about YSL.)

[strummergirl]

Posted: 7/14/14 at 6:55pm

This may just be one of my favorite films of the year. Oddly standing alone up there with Under the Skin, another gutsy sci-fi art film but with a much leaner and much more tied, odd as it sounds, to the modern experience.

But Bong Joon-Ho is one of the best directors working today, let alone one of the most accessible that it makes sense his English-language debut than his Korean brethren. Like, The Host aka the best monster film of the 21st century, this film bounces from moods to moods and into places that are bleak and moody and it does not give a flip about the type of death and destruction you expect. People see character deaths as inconsequential or even bad because it made them feel bad, but for me it feels like we as audiences are conditioned to have maybe one major death of a character ensemble per tentpole film and even in those cases that character either had their death as a fake out or were frozen in a chamber for the next film. This is a film where there is so much backwards Darwinism that mortality is accepted by the characters because this is what they were surrounded by. That exchange between Edgar and Curtis is an exchange of accepting one's fate.

I loved the unexpected, I love the twists, I love the getting legitimately shocked at the revelations I was given and how dire and near hopeless it all feels This makes perfect sense that Weinstein shelved it for a year when it was making good money in South Korea and that he wanted scenes cut- and I can definitely imagine this scene. Aside from a Tarantino film, this is not the kind of populist entertainment Harvey is used to. He also got mad that Bong refused to cave to cuts and kicked it to Radius-TWC and a smaller release. It deserved a better box office run.

I guess as a fan of dystopian sci-fi none of the text or hyper-text bothered me. 1984? Brave New World? Read a page and find a lot of connections and representation from character names and structures to the political. The film also skewers the **** out of Atlas Shrugged/Randian politics. It's not Verhoven's Starship Troopers level of skewering given where its point of view is set, but it is such a dystopian sci-fi thing to do. Heck, I dare compare Snowpiercer to Lang's Metropolis as far as the burn the whole damn thing down type of science fiction film.

I have Tilda Swinton love as much as the next person, but this cast shows a lot of people bringing their A-game in ways I was not expecting. I'm sorry, Octavia Spencer can win 5 Oscars playing maids and it will not be as satisfying as her wielding a weapon against trained thugs.

Song Kang-ho and Ah-sung Ko are pretty much the breakouts for me and maybe in Song's case my familiarity with his work in Korea have me admire the range much more (compare his work in The Host to this and this is night and day) but Swinton's Miss Jean Brodie cum Cowardly Lion served its purpose. Ah-sung Ko in particular, should be somebody to watch out for in terms of Korea cinema, maybe even Asian cinema as a whole. Jamie Bell was great as was Luke Pascqualino and Ed Harris. Evans has a tricky role that I am not sure he gets enough credit for. Unlike Steve Rogers, he is not put into this place because of his decency but as a reformed man who unlike other forms of entertainment with leads 'haunted by their past', Curtis has a truly unspeakable past that makes him feel guilty and cowardly and screwed over until the very end.

Anyway, I have said my piece on Snowpiercer.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/22/14 at 9:42am

Disappointed. At times, it was a fun watch, but most of the time, a confusing mess. I was just as confused by the end as I was at the beginning, which I found a huge detriment amid all that hammering allegory. Tilda was the best thing about the film and salvaged what could have been an unrelenting dirge. It was pretty obvious that it was based on a graphic novel as it was highly visual, mostly fast-paced and episodic, but I wish the story had connected more dots. So many scenes seemed to exist either for an unexplained conflict out of a video game or pointless atmosphere. By the end, I was just laughing at the film, having given up on making any sense out of it. It may have been highly ambitious, but in the end, it felt immature.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 7/22/14 at 9:52am

I echo what Strummer said. This was by far my favorite film of the year so far.
Loved The Host. Loved this more.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/24/14 at 7:51am

Finally saw this today, add me to the loved it group. Not 100 per cent sure if the ending worked as well as it should have.

[Taryn]

Posted: 7/24/14 at 11:59am

The director calls it a hopeful ending, but I just keep thinking, "They are going to get eaten by that polar bear. If they survive, the human race will just die out the next generation."

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 3:26am

So I tried to watch this movie and I gave up an hour in and fast forwarded the rest.




******Spoilers******


So for 17 years they kept the people in the back of the train and fed them protein bars made from millions of bugs every day? Why not just kill all these people? They serve no purpose, they sit around all day and eat and that's it. Why would they keep them for this long? They aren't slaves, they aren't making life better for the front of the train by working. Also they have bullets for guns but they don't use them in the one place they actually needed them? Doesn't make any sense.





Updated On: 8/26/14 at 03:26 AM

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 4:09am

Joe,

They needed them to give birth, so he could use the small kids to help fix the train.

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 8/26/14 at 8:40am

****spoilers ****


Thanks, Well at least that makes somewhat more sense, I fast forwarded till the very end so I missed that part , I normally don't do that but I was struggling tremendously to get through this movie and I bailed as soon as I got to the classroom part and that teacher started singing.

Still doesn't make any sense as to why they wouldn't have bullets in the guns in the one place they needed them.

This movie just wasn't for me. I liked the host and I heard nothing but good things about this movie so I was surprised I ended up hating it so much.


Updated On: 8/26/14 at 08:40 AM