Review: Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer has been gaining some good early word-of-mouth and once again, it's place in this year's festival caught my attention. I knew the basis of the plot but I had no idea what really to expect, this is probably why I enjoyed the film so much because it caught me completely off-guard and ended up being one of the most unique and downright interesting films of the year, an easy contender for one of the year's best.

Set in the near future of 2031, it's been 18 years since the world tried to combat global warming by releasing a chemical into the air to cool the planet down. Unfortunately it didn't go to plan and the entire planet was thrown into a second Ice Age which eliminated all life on Earth. The only survivors were a small group of humans who managed to make it onto The Train, an eternally driven device that houses the last remnants of humanity, carrying itself on a set of rails that span the entire earth, making one rotation every year. However, the survivors have been split into two factions, the front and the tail, the front live in luxury with plenty of food, comfort and ease while the tail live in cramped squalor where the only food is a mass-produced protein block.

When the film begins the Tail residents are already planning to revolt, not for the first time (four years ago another revolt failed and 11 years before that, seven passengers tried to escape only to freeze to death outside, becoming a warning and a memorial for the rest of them) but hopefully for the last. With the reluctant Curtis leading the charge, the Tail Section make a jump on the guards during feeding time and burst through, making their way to the front of the train, with plans to take the engine and rule the train.

Along the way they free Namgoong, a Korean engineer and former Front Section Resident, and his daughter Yona who were imprisoned for their addiction to Kronol, a highly addictive drug that is as hallucinogenic as it is flammable. With Namgoong opening the doors for them along the way, the Rebels make good progress, however the further they go the more people they lose until it becomes clear that the Front is more prepared than they had first realised. Eventually it stops being a mission of rebellion and becomes one of revenge.

It's a strong plot because it gives us a self-contained rebellion story about the poor fighting back against the rich (topical to say the least) but it evolves into something more. The Train represents the world and whoever controls the Train controls the world, it's very smart in its writing and does manage to shock you with it's unpredictability. Not to give anything away but the final act has some hidden truths that, once revealed, give you a look at the whole picture and makes you question what you've just watched.

The characters were just as great, it's very much an ensemble piece with everyone pulling their weight, some roles were smaller than others but everyone had their moment. Chris Evans pulls out what must be his strongest performance to date as Curtis, having spent half his life on the train, Curtis has been through some tough times and he's still haunted by some past mistakes (his confession near the end of the film is probably the best piece of acting Evans has done so far in his career) which makes him question his legitimacy as leader, he sees his mentor Gilliam as the leader but more people look to him for guidance. Curtis is a good but flawed man, he knows what he has to do but he struggles to make the necessary sacrifice in order to do so, he lets his emotions get the best of him from time to time but that is his biggest strength and his greatest weakness, he cares about his people and wants to help them but losing them hits him hard. Evans delivers a solid performance as Curtis and I stand by what I said with this being his best performance, he's got some tough scenes in this but he pulls through them with ease, you can see shades of Captain America in his character but he's more on the morally grey side of things.

Fighting alongside Curtis was his rag-tag group of Rebels, his second in command Edgar (Jaime Bell) shared his friend's desire to fight back but he took a more active stance with it, he was eager to help but had to prove to Curtis he could pull his weight. Octavia Spencer played one of the most likeable characters in the film as Tanya, a single mother with a five year old son who was taken by the front for reasons unknown. As strong as the best fighter and twice as fierce, she fought hard to get her son back and showed she was a valuable asset to the team. Then there was John Hurt in a small but vital role as Gilliam (a nod to Terry I'm sure). Gilliam was once a major player for the Rebels but age and loss of limbs has made him a bit-part, he spends his time as a means to help Curtis realise his potential and be the leader everyone knows he can be.

There was also Namgoong and Yuna, the father/daughter engineer pair, both addicted to Kronol. They were a good pair and you could see the relationship between them, with Yuna being a Train Baby (born on the train with no knowledge of what earth was previously) Namgoong has to teach her about the more human aspects of life as they go further up the train, she's a wide-eyed child and quite endearing to watch. She also has a precognitive power that I wish they could've explained better rather than just having it be this thing she apparently has. Namgoong, well he was a bit of a strange one, no surprise given how drug-addled his mind was from the drugs, but he frequently showed himself smarter than he let on, his primary goal was protection of his daughter but he had a secondary agenda that comes into play near the end of the film.

On the villain side we had Wilford, the designer of the Train and keeper of the engine, I won't say too much on him since we don't see him to the end (and a it's a goddamn fantastic cameo reveal) but he's a very interesting character. There was some nice small roles with the likes of Franco The Elder being a tank of a henchman and Allison Pill getting a small role as a deceptively chirpy teacher but primary villain went to Tilda Swinton as Mason, armed with a strange accent and a way with words she tried (and failed) to keep the Rebels underfoot, teaching them to know their place, when things went wrong she immediately changed her ways and tried to convince them she was on their side, she was a conniving and unlikeable bitch that you just hate from the start.

Director Bong Joon-ho (of The Host fame, no not that one, the Korean one that's actually good) makes his English Language debut here and he does a fantastic job. A big part of that has to do with the train itself which is simultaneously massive but still very small as well, the train was made up of several different carriages and each carriage had a different area to it, this was especially true of the upper levels which had aquariums, salons, discos and drug dens, each to their own carriage section so we got a huge world inside this Train. However, because each individual carriage was quite small, it allowed for some really claustrophobic action segments, it was a strange mix of huge and small but it worked, the theme of survival in an entire world consigned to this one train for eternity is a strong one but it works wonderfully.

There's also a strange but effective mix of comedy and tension, this film had a surprising amount of comedy in it with plenty of laugh out loud moments mixed in with the brutal terror of other scenes. It made for some lighter moments to ease out the harsher parts (for example, in one scene during a massive brawl the police and the Rebels stop fighting to celebrate the New Year) but it also worked to lull us into false safety, Allison Pill's teacher character enters the film as this overly-chirpy go-to-girl who teaches the children like some kind of preacher to the Church of Wilford (up to an including a fuckin song number) but it's all a ruse leading into one of the biggest shock moments in a film filmed with shock moments. The film does go to some dark, dark places throughout but it never forgets the happier moments in life that makes the darkness that little bit more bearable.

That being said of course, the dark can get a little bit hard to bear and Bong does not hold back, there's one scene that I'll focus on in a moment but the film is covered with some solid and often inventive action scenes, during a huge corner Curtis and Franco have shoot-out from across the two sides of the train which leads directly into a hand-to-hand fight between several Rebels and Franco and does not end well for either party. The initial ignition for the uprising starts as a building powder-keg as they all wait for the right moment before busting through with a home-made battering ram to keep the doors open long enough to burst through and start their way to the front. And that's just the action scenes, I don't want to spoil anything but there's some surprisingly tough moments that shine through and give the film an extra layer to enjoy.

By far the best scene of the film (and a contender for scene of the year) was the Tunnel fight between the axe-wielding Front section and the Rebels. Opening with an all-out brawl between the two sides it brought to mind scenes from the likes of The Raid and even OldBoy with a great, slow-mo one-take of Curtis hacking his way to the front, then it evolved into something else when the train went through a huge tunnel and only the Front Side had the night-vision, giving us some brutal POV shots of slaughter and death. Then it changed up AGAIN when Curtis and the Rebels brought forth the mighty power of FIRE and even the odds again in a stunning and slightly hellish display. The whole scene just kept building and building and building and proved to be one of the best directed action scenes this side of The Raid 2 for this year.

Snowpiercer surprised the hell out of me for how great it was, the story was strong, unique and unpredictable, shocking me right up until the credits rolled, the character all well-realised with Chris Evans giving what has to be his strongest performance to date and the direction put us into this strange but wonderfully realised world full of harsh, brutal tension but with some lighter comedy to ease out pain. One of the year's best, certainly one of the most unique and interesting, highly recommended.

9/10