Snowpiercer (2013)

An experiment to halt global warming goes terribly wrong and instead a new Ice Age overtakes the planet freezing all life. The only survivors inhabit a massive train that circles the globe with its own sustained ecosystem. The downside is that the train has a rigid class structure with the suppressed "rabble" at the tail of the train and the oppressive privileged classes at the front of the train. A huge hit last year in his native South Korea, director Bong Joon-Ho's (MOTHER, THE HOST) latest film took awhile to reach the U.S. due to a power struggle with its U.S. distributor, Harvey Weinstein who wanted to cut some 20 minutes out of the film. Bong Joon-Ho won the battle and the director's cut is being released here. One needn't know it's based on a graphic novel (LE TRANSPERCENEIGE) going in as it becomes obvious early on as much as recognizing a film is based on a stage play. It's cleverly constructed and maximized for high octane action and set pieces. I enjoyed it and was entertained but its pretensions began to weigh it down after awhile, it's about as profound as LOGAN'S RUN! It doesn't help that the film has a cipher by the name of Chris Evans as its hero and I began to wonder if the world would be better off with a dolt like him running things. Fortunately the rest of the cast is more interesting especially Tilda Swinton in a juicy over the top performance as one of the oppressors. Marco Beltrami's score is so low keyed as to be non existent though he composed a corker of an end title. With Ed Harris, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Kang Ho Song, Jamie Bell, Ah Sung Ko, Alison Pill and Vlad Ivanov.