Snowpiercer 2013
I had never heard of this movie, but the Blu-ray was in the $5 section at Target and then they had 20% off all of their movies, so it was only $4. Looking up reviews it got a very impressive 84 at Metacritic. I had it for almost a year before I felt like I really needed to watch it. Oh my. I still knew nothing going in, not even that the guy on the front cover is Captain America, Chris Evans (that tricky beard!). A wintry dystopian movie set on a train sounded kind of good, but this movie starts out below average and gets much worse. For one thing, it is incredibly violent. Like almost slasher porn violent, as people attack each other with hatchets. Second, the whole thing makes no sense. I’m not saying I’m confused at all. There is some mystery as to why these people are here and what is going on, and I am okay with the basics of that story, but a train is basically a ship, not the planet earth. At one point we get to see where some of the food comes from and they have an entire car devoted to growing oranges. Oranges?! That’s the high production staple you need to sustain life? Oh and one car is a disco. There is a social statement I guess in that the world does have orange trees and discos while people are starving and killing each other, but on the scale of a train, it just doesn’t make any sense. I have to wonder who is maintaining the tracks as this train stays in motion for 15 years straight. Just the whole movie requires you to turn your brain to its lowest possible setting. Then there is this Hunger Games character in it played by Tilda Swinton, and why is she here? I really don’t understand how critics thought this movie was good except that they live in a warped world where something original, even if it is terrible, can be mistaken for something good. Sadly, big train movies seldom work out and this is the Supertrain of movies.
Written: 29 Aug 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray