Review of Snowpiercer (2013) by Yonkiman — 28 Jul 2014

I honestly don't understand all the positive reviews of this movie. (Mild spoilers ahead.) From a believability point of view, it's a failure wherever you look. The entire premise of the train is absurd. Apparently this rich evil villain built this train/track in the ~1 year between when this global warming cure was discovered/launched and when that cure backfired into a catastrophe? A bunch of rebels armed with sticks defeat enemies with automatic weapons and night vision goggles IN THE DARK (with the rebels trapped on one end of a narrow car with a narrower passageway behind them) and over and over win other similar battles against similar odds? The villain is an all-but-mustache-twirling/cat stroking condescending cliché. This train is packed to the brim with unbelievability. My suspension of disbelief muscles wore out in the first 15 minutes. It also felt like the writer/director had just read Hugh Howey's Wool and reduced it to one dimension.

So that leaves the allegory. I suppose that worked if you don't mind being repeatedly hit over the head with 500lb allegories, including the inevitable villain explaining the allegory at the end in case you missed it the first 37 times.

I suppose I'm giving this a zero in part because I'm angry about being so misled by all the high scores. On it's own, this film merits a 2 or a 3. But I feel something has to be done to counteract all the absurdly high positive reviews. I want my money back. Everyone that gave this film more than a 5 owes me a penny.