Bong Joon-ho’s post-apocalyptic drama cranks like a colossal cog, rage-like momentum ripping through its intended motion, flakes of rust and oil left in its wake. Snowpiercer’s brutality exudes from its setting, an iron locomotive that circles a tundra-enveloped globe — humanity’s last hope for survival chugging along at high-rail speed. Like the sociopolitical genre mayhem of Joon-ho’s The Host, the movie offers food for thought: The train’s segmented cars force classism — the 1% in the front, the impoverished left rotting in the caboose — and it takes a resistant leader (played by Captain America’s Chris Evans) to rattle the cage.
Gamers will instantly take to the formula as the lower class battles its way through stages that share a vibe with Bioshock’s Rapture, but Snowpiercer preys on those expectations. Twisting and turning, even when navigating its linear construct, Joon-ho’s later sci-fi parable is a an action masterwork that’s chilling to the bone. This is a ticket worth buying.
