SNOWPIERCER: Crazy Train

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Writers: Bong Joon-ho, Kelly Masterson
Cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Ko Ah-sung, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer
Runtime: 126 mins.
2014 (2013 in South Korea)

In the online film community that I haunt, there has been a lot of rumbling about people going to the wrong movies. Or rather, that rumbling always exists, it has just been exacerbated recently by a few factors. Between the movie you came here to read about, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the excellent Edge of Tomorrow (as well as the much-hyped forthcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Mockingjay: Part 1), 2014 is turning out to be a banner year for mainstream sci-fi films--and yet, everybody and their reluctant mother is going to see the predictably steaming pile that is Transformers: Age of Indistinction.

That is why my goal in writing this particular review is to mobilize you to get out and go see Snowpiercer, a film that you likely haven't heard anything about, except perhaps snippets here and there: whispers in dark alleys, notes passed under restroom stalls, covert communiqués exchanged away from the watchful eyes of the Transformers marketing campaign.

In the world of Snowpiercer, the Earth has succumbed to a new ice age, brought about by humanity futzing with the atmosphere in an effort to counteract global warming. Now everything is dead. Cue the Snowpiercer, a massive train that contains the only remaining human life. It operates as a self-contained ecosystem that circles the entire globe once per year. All is not well on the so-called Rattling Ark, however. Our protagonists live in squalor in the tail of the train, cut off from the relative comfort and prosperity of the front-dwellers by a series of gates and armed guards. The gates only open once per day, for about four seconds, to allow the delivery of the nasty looking protein blocks that sustain the lives of the tailies. Guess what, though? Our hero, Curtis (Chris Evans), is planning a revolution! If our ragtag band of misfits can unite in order to press forward, and if they can wrest control of the Eternal Engine (that which sustains all life on the train) from the industrial despot Wilford, then they will have all the bargaining chips necessary to upset the established order.

But that's just the beginning. What sounds like a familiar plot opens out and contorts in all manner of unexpected ways--without ever leaving the cramped confines of the train.

EDGE OF TOMORROW: Fresh Repetition

Director: Doug Liman
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt
Runtime: 113 mins.
2014

What if a big budget summer blockbuster could be more than ingratiating?

What if that blockbuster didn't focus on visual effects at the expense of all else?  What if it treated every aspect of the film with respect and attention?  What if it tended to script, performance, pace, and tone in equal parts?

What if that script had a more pristine structure than some Oscar contenders?

What if this film came from a director whose filmography has been radically hit or miss?  What if it came from a team of writers who have arguably one excellent film between them--a film that came out in 1995?

What if the star was a former Grade-A man's man of a movie star, who has recently been perceived as "going off the deep end" and "box office poison"?

What if, despite the presence of said man's man movie star, the real badass of the film was the female protagonist?  What if the male protagonist was cowardly and hopelessly out of his league, and he had to learn the ropes from her?  What if the film didn't relegate her to the position of trophy girlfriend?  What if the movie didn't focus on their romance and instead allowed them to be real characters with a real, mature, and evolving relationship?

What if, in addition to all of this, the movie delivered on everything that is expected of a blockbuster action flick?  What if that delivery was a heavy dose of sci-fi and some of the haul-assed best mech action and convincing special effects this side of Avatar?

Actually I liked these effects better than Avatar's.

This is Edge of Tomorrow.

GODZILLA: Big Bad Ballet

Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins
Runtime: 123 mins.
2014

I am not especially familiar with the Godzilla mythos.  Before this film, the only Godzilla movie I'd had the misfortune to see was the 1998 Roland Emmerich version, starring a big CGI iguana and featuring the deft tagline: "Size Does Matter".  The bar was set low.

For many others, however, the bar was rather high.  Godzilla is a titanic figure in Japanese pop culture, and at this point has to be considered a piece of Americana as well.  People have been craving a quality Hollywood treatment of the creature for years, one that isn't hampered by a special effects capacity that doesn't surpass "man in a rubber suit," and one that does not resemble 1998's Godzilla in any way, shape, or form.

This is what they've been waiting for.

END OF WATCH: Foundering Footage

Crimefighting is delightful.

Director: David Ayer
Writer: David Ayer
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick
Runtime: 109 mins.
2012

I want to talk about found footage.  Let's talk about this movie more generally first.

End of Watch is a boots-to-the-pavement police thriller that follows the everyday lives of two patrolmen, partners Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña).  They aren't corrupt, and they aren't saints.  They're just a couple of good dudes.  The film is rather plotless, or at least the plot operates covertly.  These characters eventually get bound up in Mexican drug ring shenanigans, which is the sort of thing that tends to turn out poorly for everybody involved.  But for most of the film, this pair is just cruising about their day, and we feel like we're along for the ride.