Review of Snowpiercer (2013) by Notor12 — 10 May 2020

I just don't understand why this movie is so beloved by critics.

Dystopian class conflict has been done by other movies way way better than this. The dialogue was clunky. The character development was almost non-existent. The acting was meh. The action was good I guess. Does humanity deserve to be saved? That is the question the film asks, but never answers, and it may have been an artistic choice not to answer. It is nice to have a movie that forthrightly addresses the ugliness of humankind, but this is really a tired theme for people who have seen a lot of movies already. The film doesn't really do justice to the good in people in asking that question, either, and seems to judge humanity from a fairly one-sided pessimistic portrayal.

The better theme here would be "How can humanity be saved?" Humanity is indeed often ugly, petty, selfish, scared, envious, and hateful. But not all of humanity is that way at all times. There are ways out of all of those traits. How did particular individuals around this world escape them? That is the engine of hope. An engine not attached to this train, apparently.