On Screen: “Snowpiercer”
Snowpiercer
If you’re watching your budget and wary about paying for pricey streaming services, here’s some good news … Radical Entertainment has placed the fan-favorite, post-apocalyptic “Snowpiercer” series on free, ad-supported platforms like Roku, Pluto TV, Tubi, Plex and The CW.
Set many years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, “Snowpiercer” is a compelling exploration of class warfare and the politics of survival aboard a high-speed bullet train that has been circling the glacial planet for 17 years. There are 1,001 cars, and it soon becomes obvious that each contains a new layer of power, resistance and humanity.
South Korean filmmaker Boon Joon-ho’s first English-language production is an action-packed thriller. Passengers are strictly segregated by class. Compartmentalized order within the convoy is enforced by a grotesquely fascistic bureaucrat (Tilda Swinton). When anyone complains, his/her arm is inserted into a porthole, frozen and amputated.
Eventually, seeds of rebellion surface in the slum cars in the back of the train as Curtis (bearded Chris Evans), encouraged by elderly, peg-legged Gilliam (John Hurt), decides to lead a guerrilla force to the front, where the train’s quasi-mythical inventor, enigmatic Mr. Wilford (Ed Harris), rules in Wizard of Oz-like mystery from the engine room.
Accompanied by his loyal friend (Jamie Bell) and a determined mother (Olivia Spencer) whose child has been abducted, Curtis bribes a drug-addicted security expert (Song Kang-ho) and his dazed daughter-apprentice (Ko Ah-sung) to open the tamper-proof gates separating the railway cars.
As the insurgents move forward car by car, examining the self-sustaining ecosystem, one of their more memorable encounters is with a creepily cheerful schoolmarm (Alison Pill), another depicts the various luxuries enjoyed by the elite.
Based on a 1982 French graphic novel and filmed on interconnected soundstages at Prague’s Barrandov Studios in the Czech Republic for $40 million, it’s propelled by Boon Joon-ho’s imaginative visuality and gripping suspense, which more than compensates for the heavy-handed dystopian allegory.
Seasons 1-3 are available to binge-watch now with season 4 coming this summer.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Snowpiercer” hurtles by with an exciting, edge-of-your-seat 8, a wild ride. All aboard Snowpiercer!
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.