July 20th in Chicago, IL: This post-apocalyptic film is directed by
Boon Joon-ho and set in the year 2031. In an effort to combat climate change/global warming the leaders of the world decide it's a good idea to spray CW7 into the atmosphere in an effort to cool the Earth. Suffice the say the plan backfires terribly (after all there are no such things as bad plans just good plans that go horribly wrong) and an ice age consumes the Earth. Luckily one person, Wilford (played by Ed Harris) foresaw the ice age and managed to lay down thousands of miles of train tracks and construct a powerful locomotive that could sustain an Eco-system so that what's left of humanity can survive.
But as in the old world, there comes a price for life on the train. All the poor people are in the back of the train while the rich folks live in the front. There is an economy class but it's probably made up of the police force that keeps the poor in the back. Chris Evans plays Curtis, a guy who barely remembers life before the train. He's essentially the guy everyone looks up to up in the hopes of giving them a better life (he's also the best looking guy in the back of the train). Curtis follows the advice of Gilliam (John Hurt, who seems to show up as the same character a lot these days as the crazy old wise man). Gilliam knew or worked with Wilford years ago but has since been exiled to the back of the train. Then there's Edgar (Jamie Bell) who's Curtis' plucky sidekick. Edgar has spent all his life on the train and wants nothing more than to please Curtis and get a spot in the front.
Curtis has been plotting a move to storm the guards and move to the front. After some children are taken away, Curtis theorizes that the guards have no bullets because their usage from the last failed revolution. When Curtis proves his theory correct, they strike and take the train section. They gradually move forward and spring the train's former security director Namgoong Minsoo (played by Joon-ho veteran Kang-ho Song) so he can override the security doors to each section. Minsoo free his daughter as well and agrees to open the doors for the revolutionaries in exchange for Kronol, an industrial waste product that's fumes are inhaled to get high. Curtis and his gang capture the hated Mason (Tilda Swinton) and continue to move forward, although Edgar sacrifices himself for Curtis. The establishment launches a counter-attack by bringing out the last of the bullets and inflicts heavy losses on the revolution. During the attack Gilliam is executed but Curtis and his team's numbers are dwindling.
The team gets to the engine but are thwarted by one of Wilford's minions who shoots Minsoo and his daughter. Curtis is brought face to face with the elusive Wilford. Wilford tells Curtis that he has done an admirable job getting this far and he offers Curtis his job as the train's overseer. He tells Curtis that all this was planned, he and Gilliam were working together to "thin the herd." The problem was that the revolution was too successful and Gilliam was executed for its success. The train is an elaborate eco-system that has to stay balanced. If the population gets to big, then a revolution takes place. Curtis also finds out that children are used to service the engine as certain parts have worn out and become extinct.
This is when Curtis decides to give the audience a back story...17 years ago, the back of the train was overcrowded and the people were without food or water. They naturally went straight for cannibalism. The young, the sick were all eaten. Curtis went after a baby and in the process killed the mother. Edgar's mother. Curtis was going to eat little baby Edgar. That's when Gilliam stepped in and offered his arm for food so that the killing would stop. Others then offered up limbs to feed the hungry and eventually they were fed protein bars (much like sausage, you don't want to see how the protein bars are made). This is about when Minsoo reveals his plan to his daughter. He's going to use the Kronol to blow the hatch so they can escape to the outside world. He's got a theory that the temperature is warming up due to a crashed pane is now visible under the snow. While this is going on Curtis uses his arm to block the gears and pulls one of the children out. Minsoo blows the door which starts an avalanche and derails the train, presumably killing everyone accept Minsoo's daughter and the kid that Curtis saved. The last shot is of a polar bear, proof that life has found a way.
Now this film received a 94% critic rating on
RottenTomatoes.com. Now this wasn't a bad film but 94% seems a little high, even the audience rating of 77% is closer to reality but still too high. The film is based on a French graphic novel,
Le Transperceneige. Granted, French graphic novels are not my thing so I have no frame of reference to see what poetic license the film took. There is a lot of stuff that been done before. Edgar sacrificing himself to save Curtis, that's an old trope. The scene where Wilford reveals that all is going to plan is reminiscent of
Matrix Reloaded when Neo meets "the Creator." The one thing I thought was interesting was the polar bear in the final shot. It seems to me that once the bear spots the two kids, he's going to change direction and go get himself some lunch. Suffice to say I don't think the human race is in good shape.
The big thing that stands out is the metaphors between rich and poor. The poor are sent to the very back of the train and kept in line by an economy class police force while the wealthy live in luxury at the front of the train. The poor are dirty, they wear ALL their clothing (much like the homeless), they reproduce without care of the environment (that issue is used as a comedic theme in Mike Judge's
Idiocracy), they're mostly non-Caucasian and not all them speak English. They're referred to as a "burden." Or what the Republicans would call, "takers." The wealthy are predominantly white, English speaking, educated and well groomed. While we never see the living quarters for the wealthy, they do have access to manicure/pedicures, sushi, education and a dance club. We also don't see a lot of the economy/middle class probably because it's disappearing. There's also the mindset that the wealthy want to control the poor to the point of blissfully gunning them down in (much like
The Purge) because the care of the poor consumes a lot of resources and resources are limited on the train.
Now that we've touched upon the main theme of rich versus poor, let's get into the some other stuff. The film tells us that Wilford KNEW that CW7 would cause an ice age but he managed to put together a network of railways for the train. That would take several years not to mention the time it would take to develop the train and different cars. Especially when you see the terrain that the train goes through. The train travels around the globe and they celebrate the New Year by passing a certain landmark. Speaking of the CW7, that stuff seemed to cause an instant ice age (much like the events of
The Day After Tomorrow). Now these things would obviously take years to happen but the film doesn't have that kind of time to bogged down in science, which is a problem with films in general. What are you going to do? There's a scene where Curtis stumbles into the school car and sits in on a lesson being taught to the kids. This where Wilford springs his trap and in the aftermath the kids are gone. Where did they go? They just disappeared and forgotten. There's a lot of little things like this that take place.
One final thought, why did Wilford even bother to let poor people on in the first place? None of them have jobs and they're a tremendous "burden." Did he need to take them on in order steal the occasional child for work in the locomotive? He would have had to have had the foresight to know that certain parts would fail and that only child labor force would keep things purring along. That sounds almost possible. It's a given that the wealthy do not like to sully their hands with hard labor (although they could easily get a manicure in another car) so that leads to the inevitable conclusion that the poor needed to be added in order to get few children every now and then. Again, sounds reasonable.
All in all this film wasn't bad but I think it was a little overrated. Allegedly it broke box office records in Korea. Maybe I'm just a crotchety old white guy who doesn't like change. Thanks for your time.
