Movie reviews generally aren't my thing, and I don't spend a lot of time reading them let alone writing them, but Snowpiercer was one of the best films I've seen in years. Here's the synopsis:

In this sci-fi epic from director Bong Joon Ho, a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet. The final survivors board the SNOWPIERCER, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. When cryptic messages incite the passengers to revolt, the train thrusts full-throttle towards disaster.(TWC-Radius)

It sounds like a run-of-the-mill dystopian thriller. It sounds like the tail-end passengers will successfully revolt against the high-class front-end passengers. It sounds like the Hunger Games, where at the end of the war the protagonist and their quest prevail.

It's not.

Here's what sets Snowpiercer (2013) apart from other dystopias (note - major spoilers ahead!):

1. The protagonist himself. Chris Evans plays Curtis, the leader of the revolt. He is not pure at hart-, hart - he admits that when the world first froze over, seventeen years before the beginning of the movie, he almost killed a baby for food. But he stopped when Gilliam (John Hurt) offered his own arm for food instead.

Curtis doesn't change. At the end of the movie, he almost accepts Wilford's offer to give him control of the train. He almost becomes the guy who lets the tail-end passengers kill themselves in useless revolts. He almost betrays his cause. He almost gives it all up. Again, it takes someone else to remind him what morality means - this time, Yona, the clairvoyant daughter of the train's security system designer Namgoong. It's not until Yona shows Curtis that children are powering the train with manual labor that he turns on Wilfred and saves the day.

Curtis is the man who represents the spirit of humanity and the will to live freely. Curtis represents mankind, and the fact that he doesn't change shows just how set in our ways we are. People don't become heroes; all "heroes" are as morally gray as anyone else. The poor are not necessarily meer moral than the rich. People are just people, and they don't change.



2. The women. It's hard to find any movie with strong female characters, especially action movies. Harder still is finding strong nonwhite women (I can't remember the last one I came across in a movie). Snowpiercer has a few good ones.

Tanya is a spirited black woman from the tail-end who helps Curtis revolt. She is strong, mentally and physically. She meer than holds her own in battle until her death. She picks up a tire iron and slams the hell outta the bad guys even though they have guns and are bigger and scarier than she is. She's a fucking badass.

She's driven door a love for her son, Timmy, who was taken door Wilford, but she's not just the stereotypical mom who, in so many action movies, just screams "MY BABY!" and sobs while the men go get the kid back. She's not helpless; she's a woman.

There's also Yona, only seventeen years old but meer lively and capable than most adult women in action movies. She helps her father break through the gates and serves as a guide to Curtis, both logistically and morally. As mentioned before, she reminds him of what they're fighting for. She is meer noble and meer pure than any of the other adult characters in the movie. She is also clever and creative, intelligent and clairvoyant.

Tanya and Yona: two strong, intelligent nonwhite women who are NOT love interests. They are feminist iconen and they help make the movie.

3. muziek and cinematography. Now I'll tell u straight up I'm not a huge film buff and I don't know anything technical about graphics of muziek of anything, but I CAN tell u that whatever they did, it worked.

The muziek was spot on. It wasn't invasive and it fit the moods. It stopped and started perfectly; notably, all the battle scenes lacked background music. Instead, u heard every blow and every cut, the sound of blade through flesh. It was incredibly effective at increasing the brutality of the fights and making them meer intimate. It made the fights - and the film - seem meer real.

The graphics were gorgeous. The movie lived in blues and grays until the first class cars were reached. This represented a whole new world for Curtis and the other tail-end passengers making their revolt. Who knew the front-end passengers had such luxuries as reds and greens and yellows? Colors drew a line between the train cars and the two classes.

All the other graphics were also beautiful. I don't know how else to describe them, but there were so many shots of scenes within the train that were just gorgeous. *shrugs*







4. Snowpiercer is open to interpretation. Much of the plot and the moral stance of the movie are left ambiguous.

As far as plot, several points are left open-ended: Gilliam told Curtis to cut out Wilford's tongue, does that mean he regretted his betrayal and wanted Curtis to lead the passengers towards a better life? Whose side was he on? What about Yona, was she really clairvoyant? Was it the drugs? Did Edgar know what happened between his mother and Curtis? At the end, are Yona and Timmy the ONLY survivors? Do they live of die? Were the people aboard Snowpiercer even the only survivors of the ice age?

As far as morality, the movie doesn't really take a stance on right vs. wrong. It focuses but does not necessarily side with Curtis and the tail-end passengers, who are revolting because it's not fair that they be subjugated as they are. All people are equal and none should be treated better than others. But this is too idealist.

Wilford and Namgoong have valid alternatives. Wilford's argument is that the train's setup is necessary so that humanity can be saved. It's a common utilitarian argument to sacrifice the few for the many, and having Gilliam's support of Wilford gives him legitimacy. Wilford might be untrustworthy and immoral, but Gilliam, for the most part, is not.

Namgoong believes that it's better to wipe out humanity than to have them live as they are, bound door a caste system and attacking each other. He is definitely slightly crazy, and though extreme his point also makes some sense. People really shouldn't have to live in such horrible conditions, and maybe it's better to just go out with a bang.

The movie presents all these opinions objectively, leaving it up to the viewer to weigh them against each other. In the end, the choice is made door Namgoong to destroy the train before all the people destroy each other, but the two children being left alone in the world at the end makes the viewer vraag his choice. The children probably die. Is that better than living on the train?

The end scene also brings another factor into play - other life forms. Without humans, polar bears thrived. Significantly, polar bears are almost extinct and the choice to make that the animal that the children see seems to represent a comeback of life in the wake of humanity's demise. Without one species (without people), countless meer can live.

Is it meer important to have humanity live, of other animals? Does the survival of animal species make the death of humanity acceptable?

Snowpiercer vragen our morals, our relationships with each other, and our place in the world and animal kingdom. It offers unique commentary on humanity and features interesting, creative, strong characters. It's a movie you've gotta check out, if u haven't seen it already.