Finished it. So heavy handed.
I just watched this on VOD. Pure, unadulterated shit. Seriously. It absolutely blows my mind that this has a “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, let alone a 94%.
There was nothing surprising, nothing subtle, nothing redeeming about this. Ed Harris plays a cartoon bad guy. Tilda Swinton plays a cartoon bad lady for laughs. “I know what babies taste like!” LOL. Fucking awful. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
I was hoping for a stinger, after the credits, consisting of
the fucking polar bear eating the two of them.
You believe Ayn Rand?
Whether they showed it or not, that’s exactly what would have happened.
Polar bears do not waste opportunities to eat.
Yes, of course. It reminds me of a low budget film I saw in the 80’s where there was a train moving at 200 kilometers around the Equator of the moon. Never slowing and the feeder lines had to speed up to catch the train when the passengers got on and off.
I snorted when he said that line. And as soon as he mentioned arms and legs, I started the countdown for his turn.
There were some nice touches, though. I liked everything that happened in the school car, including the manic Alison Pill. I liked the 17-year-old clairvoyant and her father. And it was visually captivating, or I might not have finished.
Still.
I agree that the Korean guy and daughter looked like they could have been from a different, decent movie. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much depth here besides opening doors. The director tried to make us care about the main character by giving him an extended monologue about two hours into the fucking movie.
I have no problem suspending disbelief about a completely self-sufficient train that never derails or runs into a piece of bad track, but at least the plot itself should make some sort of sense.
Wilford wants a successor, so he chooses some guy from the back of the train and who therefore has the LEAST motivation to keep the status quo because…???
Wilford’s friend at the back of the train accepts living in squalor and losing limbs and still remains loyal to Wilford because…???
Wilford decides the best way of culling excess population is fomenting uprisings instead of just killing a bunch of steerage passengers because…???
For that matter, why are the third-class passengers even on the train at all? They aren’t contributing anything besides the odd toddler worker and are merely a constant danger of revolt (and they consume valuable bug protein). If we’re being generous, we can fanwank that Wilford likes the threat of revolution to keep the front of the train in line, except that none of the fronties seem all that scared or mobilized. They’re too busy having 24/7 dance parties at the front of the train to be bothered to pick up a bong and hit one of the people who are, you know, threatening to END THEIR ENTIRE WAY OF LIFE.
I know if I ever build a supertrain capable of transversing the whole globe once a year, the proper train car configuration is as follows: Engine, Gandalf’s Bridge car, orgy car, dance party car, dining car, sauna car, meat locker car, sushi car… Housing for all the thousands of Richie Riches partying it up in the Elevenses car is optional. Ditto housing for all the hatchet-wielding thugs.
And can I just add how stupid the dance party car was? I guess the rave from the Matrix 2 wasn’t embarrassing enough.
after watching the trailer, if the rich were so afraid of rebellion, that they had armed SWAT teams, why did they give the poor axes?:dubious:
Kinda fun, but the contrast between its silly premise (and comedic absurdity such as Swinton’s character and the school car) and its serious (though simplistic) message isn’t satisfactorily reconciled. It would have been better if it had gone one way or the other, but not both. Ultimately it’s an exercise in style over substance. Not unlike the director’s previous film The Host, which is half “fun monster flick” and half “bloated meandering political statement.”
Yeah, I was waiting for him to start loping toward them.
They only get sushi twice a year, BUT THERE’S NO LINE AT THE BAR. It’s funny I was willing to suspend disbelief on major things, but things like that caught my attention…uncanny valley indeed.
The poor weren’t armed with axes, that was some sort of masked S&M security force. Why were they masked? No practical reason, just looked cooler. The poor picked up some of their fallen hatchets.
This is a great point. The tone was so inconsistent. Well-placed comedic pieces can really be a great counter-point and tension release for an action flick (see: the great Edge of Tomorrow). Here, the comedic pieces went on so long and veered into farce (and weren’t all that funny). It’s like someone spliced in 5 minute pieces of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the middle of this grim, baby-eating dystopia. Jarring, to say the least.
Not that I want to defend this stinker, but I thought this was because the rebels were eating sushi out of the correct order. They showed up with guns so they gave them sushi no matter what time of year it was.
I was more bothered by the fact that everyone is blithely shooting giant holes in the windows of the train. Isn’t it supposed to be life-killingly cold outside? Cold enough that it froze that guy’s arm off in seven minutes flat. Speaking of shooting through the windows, what was up with that weird John Woo homage when Curtis and the unkillable guy are shooting at each other through the windows and they both ran out of bullets? That went on for about 3 minutes too long. The movie itself was about 30 minutes too long.
I get that it was allegorical. That made it watcheable.
But there are some things that were so WTF that it was jarring. Like the meat locker. And the scarcity of sleeping quarters. And all the young passengers whose sole existence seems to be dancing and doing drugs. These scenes were all visually stunning, but…WTF. It just got more and more absurd as it went along.
(Which I guess is allegorical too. The higher you go socioeconomically, the more absurd life becomes.)
Upon seeing the Ed Harris character, I immediately thought of the ending of the Truman Show. Then, when he revealed the big twist, I thought of the Matrix. So it’s an old story, dressed up in a different, more crazy way.
It wasn’t a great movie. But I think it will be one of those films I won’t be able to get out of my head for awhile.
Just saw it. I think it’s probably as close as we’re going to get to seeing a *Bioshock *movie - for better or for worse.
I saw it because of this thread, and it reminded me of B movies which I used to watch in the drive-in during the 60s.
It was entertaining enough, and my husband and I saw it for $6.99 on Amazon, so I’m happy.
This is what bugged me. I can go along with things that don’t really make sense, like the train never stopping and the tracks being okay and the layout of the train. I can fanwank some stuff like we didn’t see every single train car they went through, so maybe some of those had things you would expect, like barracks for the thugs, and small cages for chickens and cows, and other such things. Apparently in the original comic book there are 1000 train cars; I don’t know if they said how many there were in the movie but probably more than we saw.
But I didn’t know why the poor were on the train. In many dystopias the poor are essential for the rest of society, because the rich are exploiting them for their labor. But in Snowpiercer the only way the poor were shown being used was by the violinist being taken, and by the kids that were taken.
And why were the poor let on the train in the first place if they were immediately deprived of food and water? It would have made more sense if they were allowed on the train because Wilford or whatever head train people had good intentions, conditions worsened and it looked like food was running out, then they were sealed off, forced into cannibalism, and then eventually allowed to have the gross protein bars. It just is very strange to let them on and then immediately seal them off.
But overall I enjoyed the movie. I’ve been recommending it to friends, partly because I think some of my friends will enjoy it, and partly because I want it to do well financially. It’s rare enough to get unique, good quality sci-fi movies in theaters anymore, I don’t want one of the rare instances of it to fail and prove to the studios that there’s no reason to release these movies.
I saw it without reading this thread at all and having no bias.
I thought it was a lot of fun and a really good movie. I did not like the ending, but liked pretty much all the rest of it. I guess I easily accepted the ludicrous premise and was able to just enjoy the movie. I thought the acting was good, the action scenes were pretty good, and I liked most of the characters.
I think that Ebert quote about “how it goes about it” is definitely important here. I found that the movie went about its story very well even though the premise was dumb. I was able to accept a dumb premise in this one, but I don’t think I’ll ever see that Lucy movie about using 10% of our brains. Both are ludicrous concepts, but this one is…just workable.
Comparatively, I saw The Raid 2(79% Rotten Tomatoes) the day before and thought it was terrible. Shockingly terrible. Two or three nice action scenes and a horrible 2 1/2 hour long mess. And I loved The Raid 1.
Both movies surprised me in different ways.
Thread TL;DR but I watched this almost 100% cold last night - finding it fascinating that it’s on streaming while still in theaters - and while I didn’t fall in love with it, I was very impressed. What might throw viewers is that it’s clearly constructed as a parable or fairy tale or open fantasy; it’s a Korean-influenced take on magical realism. Expecting a “believable” sci-fi actioner would only lead to disappointment, which is what seems to have happened to a lot of viewers and critics. The production values are absolutely top-shelf, and the endless details (such as the translation units, and quirks of the train) show loving attention to the whole.
I think that anyone who likes the off-tangent magical realism films of the last decade or so will love it, but anyone looking for an installment of the Marvel megafranchise is going to walk out.
That said… how 'bout that Tilda Swinton. She killed a weird, weird role. Ed Harris can still outact any ten of his peers if he’s given good material. And Chris Evans… very glad to hear you’re stepping out of acting when your current commitments are up. Very best wishes behind the camera; thanks much for your superb Cap portrayal; glad you know you are incapable of playing any other role.
I watched this last night and really didn’t enjoy it.
I don’t usually have trouble suspending disbelief, and I probably could have handled the absurdity of the train itself. What I couldn’t take is that we were supposed to buy into the idea that this society is so unjust and corrupt that armed revolution is the proper response, when there’s no particular explanation of the society. The very existence of the tail of the train doesn’t make any sense. Why is it there? And why are the people in the front of the train so content? I don’t think that’s adequately explained, either.
I think both Wall*E and City of Ember were more believable examinations of dysfunctional, closed-system, post-apocalyptic societies.
Also, it just wasn’t particularly gripping. I found myself getting up for snacks or checking facebook all too frequently.
Just saw this over the past week, so figured I’d reopen and add my two cents.
Also found this production schematic of the train, which helps put it into context.
I found it a weirdly enjoyable film that effectively combined the absurdity of a Terry Gilliam dystopia film with the absurdity of a Danny Boyle apocalypse film with the absurdity of an Asian action film. Sort of like Brazil meets Sunshine meets The Raid. 12 Monkeys meets 28 Days Later meets Oldboy.
I also felt like it had a bit of a Bioshock / Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged world run amok vibe.
Yeah, that definitely veered into “Asian Action Movie” territory. You’re on a train. Was there some reason to engage in useless firefight hundreds of yards apart on a moving train through bullet-resistant glass? I mean other than to waste all the ammo so you don’t bring your guns to the upcoming knife fight?