Snowpiercer is Still Terrible

As I discovered Saturday night: 

I still hate Snowpiercer.

The only reason why I’d revisit a movie I loathed more than practically everyone else since the theatrical experience in summer of 2014 (which drew a surprisingly big crowd for someone who had only made a few Korean pictures beforehand): the original review I wrote was not my best review… not my worst either, but still lackluster. Other bad reviews are of other movies I despised; it’d require revisiting those, which is not a task I’m going to do unless I am really brave one evening. Yes, I hated Mickey 17 also-for many of the same reasons-but at least certain details, Re: Snowpiercer can be mentioned that weren’t the first time.

Unlike Mickey 17-which had a nice opening 30 minutes only to become worse and worse to a putrid final 20 or so minutes, Snowpiercer started off horribly and irritating to the extreme and only had some OK moments sprinkled throughout… leading to a putrid final 20 or so minutes. 

The very conceit of the movie is just dumb, if we’re being frank here. The world has entered an ice age after an experiment to combat global warming goes awry, so… there’s a perpetual motion machine trail traveling around the world after most everyone has died, and it’s not just the rich A-holes that are on board but there’s all segments of society… so we get clumsy metaphors over the have-nots in the back of the train engaging in an uprising?!

Now, a few days ago I did read a reply made by a random person in the comments of a Letterboxd mutual’s review (they aren’t a fan of the movie either) which expressed that both in the French graphic novel and the TV show, an explanation is provided for the demographics of the train. The specific details are unknown—that said, even if I DID know the explanation, my loathing of Snowpiercer would remain. The movie is just not enjoyable; just like in Mickey 17 there is a nonstop onslaught of LOUD clumsy, awkward opinions over how awful capitalism is… honestly, it’s time to play some different notes, Bong Joon Ho!

It's ridiculous that both films feature dark-colored rectangles of a gelatinous “food product” for the have-nots while the haves dine on steak. What I didn’t even pick up in 2014: the poor character portrayed by John Hurt had the surname… Gilliam. One of many examples of how dumb and unsubtle Snowpiercer is. 

To copy and paste part of what I wrote 11 years ago, along with some 2025 revisions: 

“I thought (the dumb plot) wouldn't be a big deal as if you have a fun story populated with interesting and fun characters. Unfortunately, I hated most of the dumb illogical A-holes present here, no matter if they were “the good guys”, “the bad guys” or innocent parties. I don't know what the hell it was that Tilda Swinton played, except it was an atrocious caricature of something you'd wouldn’t find on planet Earth, no matter if it's a new Ice Age or not. Her playing a man in the truly abominable Suspiria remake was far more pointless, yet what she did here was far more unendurable.

Besides the characters I couldn't give a damn about, there's the story. In simplest terms it makes sense. How it plays out, though... nope. It's a confused mess best not left dwelled on. Like some dumb A-hole dressed up in a PIGEON costume in Mickey 17, Snowpiercer also had surreal, ridiculous, pointless offal on display for the viewer. The movie got off on a bad foot (or perhaps I should say “bad arm”) and except for a few moments that weren’t bad, the appeal of the film is beyond my comprehension.

The fact that this has both bad CG and action of the shaky-cam variety (at least Mickey 17 had far less of that) only solidified my sour opinion of Snowpiercer. There are many different reasons why many modern movies aren’t appealing to me; paragraphs could be written on all the grievances I have but I’ll spare everyone and not do so. In recent years I’ve become more discerning in avoiding the modern movies that appear to have the qualities which make me say, “That don’t work for me, brother! I’ll avoid you” although sometimes I’m blindsided by flicks that are much worse than expected, or the rare occasions where I view something like Netflix slop to discover just how trash it was. 

Point is, I’ll happily never view Snowpiercer again; no, the third Bong Joon Ho film has never been tackled. I’ve heard enough hearsay about Okja to know that another irritating anti-capitalistic film which also has a pro-vegetarian message yelled in your ear for 2 hours plus… no thank you.