Snowpiercer (2014), R, ★★★★

Chris Evans amongst a few survivors on a train.

What happens if the planet is so desolate that you cannot find a place to live in and survive for the remainder of your life? Global warming, storms, et cetera, et cetera. I cannot imagine what I would do if some catastrophic event interfered my life and also billions of other live. The only question remains on anybody's mind: "What do I do?" It's a game for survival. Therefore, a train is the setting for this small film that has brought its way into my foray of movies that I needed to watch. And, ultimately, I have to thank myself that I did because this movie is something special.

Because of a failed experiment trying to combat global warming, a new ice age has occurred on Earth and caused every living organism to die. Now, the remaining humans have lived for years on the Snowpiercer, a train with a perpetual-motion engine. It is like a "Hunger Games" world inside the train where the lowest ranking people live in the tail end whereas the elite group of passengers live near the front.

Curtis (Chris Evans) leads a revolt against the front end of passengers due to the overcrowding and they are fed protein blocks and they use protein blocks as messages to coordinate the revolt. Edgar and Tanya (Jamie Bell and Octavia Spencer) also guides their way throughout the cars and as Edgar and Curtis break out of the "jail car", they discover people in drawers and a man named Namgoong Minsu (Song Kang-ho) as he and his daughter are in the drawers and they are addicted to the waste and Curtis and Edgar discover that the protein bars made out of bugs. Yuck!

And as Curtis kidnaps Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), he asks her to take them to the front of the train and as they get further and further down the train, discoveries are being made about the outcome of this train and why children are taken away.

The lower inhabitants trying to get through a classroom train.

This film is undoubtedly a big surprise. I felt that the story is so tragic and depressing that the filmmakers took a lot of courage to go darker into the depths of why people are living in the Snowpiercer for so many years. The reason is very disturbing that I cannot reveal as I type it but it unfortunately makes sense. However, the journey to survival is riveting because you do not know who will make it and the movie is very unpredictable as to what will be the outcome. The ending, however, is not as ambiguous as I expected, but at the same time, it is frustrating in a good way with a sense of tragedy and ambiguity. This is a precocious film.

Chris Evans is having probably the best year of his career so fear with the Captain America sequel and this little gem. This movie proves that he has the capability to blend into lighter and ominous surroundings. He is really good in this film. Tilda Swinton is fantastic, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt, Song Kang-Ho and even Ed Harris are at the top of his game. Harris has played so many villains in his career that I think it ranks as one of his best performances, but I think people will regard his role as an underrated performance.

This is a splendid 2-hour film that raises questions in its simplistic, but imaginative story. The dystopian bleakness is appropriate and necessary to maneuver us into the "Blade Runner-like" stage of life, but it is worse than the film directed by Ridley Scott. Directer Joon-ho Bong has created an intrepid, small world that is both resolute and triumphant to make us care about what will happen to the citizens in that train, once, it reaches the end. This is a confident, small film that is not worth missing. It is one of the best films of the year, so far.

****