Review of Snowpiercer (2013) by Briana C — 26 Oct 2016

Snowpiercer left me with mixed feelings; while I appreciated its social commentary, I was left than pleased with it lack of variation of setting and immense amounts of gore.

Snowpiercer heavily relied on its thread of light vs dark in order to advance the message of the movie with light eventually equating knowledge in the end. While this thread was well placed and executed, I felt that the fact that the setting was so stagnant partially detracted from this. The filmmaker could have done a better job of differentiating each section of the train to help combat this.

Another point of discontent for me was the amount of Chinese spoken without translation or subtitles. While sometimes Nam would use the electronic translator at his disposal, they were still long periods that his Chinese went untranslated in the movie. I don't know if this is because I found some bootleg version online that neglected to include subtitles or what but it left me pretty lost.

I also felt some part were bizarrely not thought through. For instance, how did the two kids who survived in the end come out unscathed and fully garnished in eskimo clothing when the 2 people standing next to them were incinerated?? That makes entirely no sense.

I did enjoy the overall social commentary on classism and survival throughout the film. I would definitely say that Curtis is not a classic hero figure. This was hinted at when he turned his back on Edgar and allowed him to be sad. A true hero would have found a way to beat the odds and save him while furthering the mission.

All in all, the movie was OK. Not great, and not terrible, but definitely too gory for my tastes.