Snowpiercer (2014): Review

This weekend I went and saw the new movie Snowpiercer.  Snowpiercer was written and directed Joon-ho Bong and prior to my father suggesting going to see it, I hadn't really heard anything about it. This movie had the potential to be something and had a lot of great components about it but for me it never really came together.  Yes it was interesting and keep me focused throughout wondering how everything would come together and end but at the end I was just thinking I know he had a several points to make but none of them really shone as the main one.  It was worth a watch and had a great cast but is really only for people who don't mind action movies that don't really go anywhere, don't have the shininess of the big budget action movies, and leave you contemplating what did the director want me to get out of this.  It is more of a drama action movie.

Snowpiercer is a movie that is set seventeen years from now after the world has been sent into an ice age due to anti global warming chemicals that were put into the air.  Due to this all life on earth is gone except for the few thousand people who manage to board the Snowpiercer train, a self sustaining train that is able to protect those inside of it from the harsh weather conditions.  Within the train a class system has developed with those in the front of the train living in the lap of luxury and those in the tail of the train living in poverty.  In the tail end of the train you have Curtis, played by Chris Evens who is planning an uprising with his fellow tail-members to work their way to the front of the train and take over the engine.  He is helped by his second in command Edger, played by Jaime Bell, friend Tanya, played by Octavia Spencer, and mentor Gilliam, played by John Hurt. The seek the help of drug addict security expert Namgoong Minsoo, played by Kang-ho Song and his daughter Yona, played by Ah-sung Ko, to help them open the locked doors between train sections.  During their struggle to fight their way to the engine they are blocked by upper classed Minister Mason, played by Tilda Swinton.  Can Curtis make it to the engine and change his world, will Mr. Wilford, played by Ed Harris, the creator of the train keep his precisely set up world in order with Curtis challenging him?

Like I said this movie has a lot of things that had the potential to come together really well but it just never reached its full potential. Although it didn't ultimately become spectacular it was still worth watching for being a different type of action/drama then I have seen lately. The best thing for me in this movie was the cast.  It had a lot of actors that I tend to like and I think the chemistry between them was good.  There were some moments of over the top but overall it worked for me.  If it didn't have this cast it would have ended up being  a lot worse then it was.

This movie tried to have some great graphics and needed them to work for everything to come together.  For me it was easy to tell that the views outside of the train were CGI and that this movie didn't have the budget to really make it blend in with rest of what it was doing.  It also had a lot of close up action sequences and in this movie there were too much for me and I really just wanted it to back up the shot.
The story seemed to be alright but I didn't like how they weaved it together with what was going on in the present and the back stories of some of the characters.  There were things referenced throughout the movie the were then identified as meaning something later on but for me it didn't add to the experience it made me go I don't like that and wish they would have worked it out a little bit differently to still include the emotional scene but without such a guttural response from me.

This movie was more interesting and required more attention then a lot of the bigger budget action movies that have come out lately but it does have me wanting to see it again to try get a better grasp on all of what was going on.  That being said I wont pay money to see it again in theaters.

My Rating: 2