Movie Review: Snowpiercer (2013)

The movie stars Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Jamie Bell and Octavia Spencer.

I had heard good things about this movie but never took the time to watch it. However, I happened to catch part of this film on one of our movie channels the other night and thought it looked interesting. As a result, I ended up watching it over the past couple of days. Overall, I have to say this movie was pretty good.

There were a couple things I found I really liked about this movie. One of these was the various challenges the rebels and their leader, Curtis (Evans) encountered as they tried to take over the moving train. This included a series of locked doors, a gun-wielding elementary school teacher (Alison Pill) and even a room of soldiers carrying axes. While there were times when this made the film seem a little bizarre, it was definitely different and entertaining as a result of that.

The other thing I liked about this film was the various little mysteries. Curtis, for example, kept receiving messages from the front but there was no indication (at least until the very end) about who was sending them. Plus, there seemed to be an unusual amount of interest when it came to the children in the rear section of the train and the mystery from that only deepened as they progressed and the children still weren’t found. There also were other questions answered as they moved into different sections of the Snowpiercer, including what was in those protein bars they were eating.

As a result of all of this, the movie wasn’t anywhere near as predictable as I thought it would be. This is especially true of the ending, when Curtis meets the train’s conductor, Wilford (Harris) and learns the truth about everything. When that happened, I honestly wasn’t really sure what direction the writers were going to take with the conclusion. That, as you can imagine, did keep me interested.

As I mentioned, there are some scenes in this movie that are a little bizarre (including when it finally reveals what happened to the kids). However, overall, the film proved to be entertaining to watch and I would definitely recommend it as a result of that.

My Grade: A