The Train of Life

Picture it: Earth, 2014. Global warming is a big, pressing problem.

Yeah, I know. Not that hard.

Now get this, yo: The people of this our beautifully neglected third rock from the sun, in their infinite wisdom, have devised a solution to the issue. The plan centers on a chemical substance called CW-7 that almost 80 unknown-but-hubris-prone countries have been developing in secret concert to disperse and counteract the effects of this manmade global warming.

It’s a controversial move, and, of course, it goes awry.

In other words, the worst actually happens, which is exactly what Snowpiercer, the Bong Joon-ho-directed adaptation of the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, wants you to consider: a frozen world in which just about all life goes extinct and where the precious few who remain live and/or survive in what is known as the Rattling Ark, a speeding train stuck on a perpetual loop around the world.

Note I made a distinction between living and surviving. This because, although the film’s most-engrossing driving action is set 17 years later, the proverbial divide between between those who have and those who don’t is more marked than ever.

The front of the train is for the rich and the rear is for the poor.

Classes, likes roaches, it seems, will endure anything, and everyone, especially those in the tail, are encouraged to remember their places by a totalitarian regime embodied by the vainglorious Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton, fantastic and chameleonic as ever in a second turn made all that much more memorable by an outstanding achievement in hair and make-up; The Grand Budapest Hotel was the first.)

While Mason is all about maintaining the “eternal order” that is prescribed by the snowpiercer’s “sacred engine” – because “so it is” – Chris Evans’ Curtis is fixing to lead (albeit somewhat reluctantly) a back-to-front beyond-ragtag rebellion through several imaginatively designed cars that will seek to equalize the dire situation of his fellow have-nots, which include a younger brother stand-in played by Jamie Bell, a mother (Octavia Spencer) desperate to find her son, and a mentor figure portrayed by John Hurt.

Curtis has lived on board for half his life. He barely remembers what it was like in the old world and what’s even worse, he doesn’t want to. It’s too just painful, but what really haunts him are those early years on the tail of the train, a time of chaos that, we find out in the film’s third act, shaped him in a didn’t-see-it-coming kind of way. And Evans does an amazing job at withholding his past from us just enough for us to think he’s a superficial hero, at telegraphing his doubt, that when he finally reveals why he is the way he is, it really feels like a well-earned revelation.

Snowpiercer is an allegory of our world, and Bong and his terrific design team take us on a rich metaphor-filled journey that is not only visually but also mentally stimulating, complete with these...angels played by Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung (the stars of Bong’s The Host) that agree to take Curtis up to Wilford, the God-like creator of the train and, as it turns out, a figure that may or may not exist.

As far as thought-provoking actioners go, this one is one of the best.

Grim as all get-out; but super-engaging, and, in a way, a true breakthrough for Evans. This one has all the makings of a cult classic, and I hope the powers that be will resist the urge to further expand its universe with a prequel or a sequel.

That’s how high Snowpiercer actual sets the bar.

My Rating ****

Photo: Collider.com.