It is impossible to know what will be revered down the road, but it is truly something to behold when you witness a film that you are just sure will be a future cult classic. From the detailed world to the crazy monologues, I get a good feeling that Snowpiercer will be just that.

Snowpiercer, the latest film from Bong Joon-ho, is a rare breed: too smart to be a summer blockbuster, yet too fun to be a moody summer indie flick. So instead, it is a little bit of both, with fantastic results. Based on a graphic novel, Snowpiercer takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. After a solution to solve Global Warming fails, the Earth freezes over. A select few are given their own ark, in the form of a train that runs on a perpetual engine. Snowpiercer is able to explain this in a manner that is much more succinct than the normal blockbuster would. This is a film that truly knows how to pace itself.

The train is organized like the Titanic, as the wealthiest take the front of the train, and the poor occupy the back. Like an old fashioned caste system, everybody is expected to stay in their pre-ordained position. Conditions are just right for a little rebellion, and that is exactly what happens as Curtis (Chris Evans) reluctantly leads a revolt against the upper class, who have been kidnapping children and feeding the poor with disgusting looking protein bars as the rich dine on steak and sushi.

Snowpiercer is one of those films that doesn’t deserve to be as good as it is. Yet, it is by far the best action movie I have seen so far this summer. While American blockbusters have been trying so hard to appeal to audiences overseas (*cough* Transformers *cough*), maybe American filmmakers should instead pay attention to how filmmakers are making movies overseas. Snowpiercer is a masterclass exercise in action that doesn’t cloud character and story development.

At its core, Snowpiercer is partially that classic story of “The One.” You know that story, because you have all seen Star Wars. That is when some random guy is chosen as the one who is going to save the world from the mess they are all in, even if that one person is going to spend the first two acts of the story complaining about being chosen. In stories like that, often, the other characters don’t mean as much. Everyone in Snowpiercer feels instrumental. This is less a story about “The One,” and more a challenging narrative about how society chooses its heroes. Yet, Chris Evans proves once again that he makes an awesome hero. Curtis is quiet for somebody who is selected to be a leader. Once he does talk, he delivers an incredibly memorable monologue, one that may or may not involve eating babies.

Snowpiercer has an impressive cast, with Tilda Swinton mainly stealing the show as the deranged but often very funny henchman. She works for Wilford, the train’s engineer and the supposedly benevolent leader. I could tell you who plays Wilford, or you could look it up on IMDB. However, the buildup to him is so well done and so suspenseful that it works even better if you don’t know. The less you know about Snowpiercer before seeing it, the better. So, maybe that means that reading this review is pointless. All I can say is that any blockbuster makes me think of class politics and the possible existence of God, and then throws in a night vision ninja fight on top of it, is good in my book. In a different era, people might have waited in line around the block just to get a glimpse of Snowpiercer.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• The difference between a good summer blockbuster director and a bad summer blockbuster director: a good summer blockbuster director pays attention to the world surrounding the characters, and makes it interesting before blowing it all up. A bad blockbuster director treats their world like a kid who just got a hold of a toy truck and some fireworks.
• Snowpiercer feels like an action film directed by Wes Anderson. You expect Wilford to come out and say, “let me tell you about my train.”
• Alison Pill might not be famous enough yet to merit “cameo” status. Still, there is a great cameo by Alison Pill in this as a propaganda-spurting school teacher.
• Prediction: One day, kids will be buying Wilford Industries shirts at Urban Outfitters.
• I have been watching a lot of really good TV lately. Whenever I watch a lot of really good TV, I tend to forget about movies. I tried to imagine Snowpiercer as a TV show. It would be a miniseries and each episode would focus on a different part of the train. Sure, it would be cool and incredibly in depth. However, maybe it would be too much detail, to the point of lingering. That is the good thing about film: you can get in, and then get out. A good director knows what details to focus on most in order to maximize the allotted two hours. Go to the movies, people. There are some good ones out there right now.

A man and a woman as partners? In a movie? Do you think there’ll be sexual tension between them? Image via Business Insider

The differences between Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latest Captain America installment, shows how much the Marvel Universe has changed and expanded in just three years.

The Winter Solider happens to combine both the worlds of Captain America and The Avengers: half of it is a promotion for a bunch of Marvel stories that I have little interest in, and the other half is a Captain America movie. Leave it to Disney to replace traditional product placement with promotion of their own products.

The latest Captain America has the honor of being the sequel to two different movies: The First Avenger and The Avengers. My head hurts. Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans) is now a full-time agent for the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D., working with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to bring down all existential threats. Trouble is afoot in the nation’s capital, and nobody is to be trusted. I know this because Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) says “don’t trust anybody” multiple times (I tried to count), in case you forgot that this is a movie and bad things are supposed to happen in movies.

While the first Captain America was a send-up killin-Nazi World War II films, The Winter Soldier takes place mostly in the present day, and is more in line with paranoid, post-911 political thrillers. I really liked the first Captain America even though others did not. It had a Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe to it: very inspired by the past, and very much into taking itself seriously while also acknowledging its own silliness. Winter Soldier only seems committed to doing that sometimes. With its undertones about N.S.A. surveillance, The Winter Soldier fancies itself as an allegorical comic book movie of Dark Knight proportions. Hey, at least it tries.

However, there are some more interesting aspects of the Captain America mythology that transcend current events, such as Captain America serving as a symbol of hope to uplift an entire frightened army, and also to sell a lot of war bonds. However, the two films have made this idea into something of an afterthought. It will get to that as soon as it finishes telling you how this one scene totally relates to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Winter Soldier is essentially two different films, with one half being better than the other. Besides one great car chase, the first half is bogged down by exposition. Every time somebody is about to do something, they have to take a break from what they are doing to explain why they are doing it. The more it tries to elevate its plot, the more The Winter Soldier becomes a great, big muddle.

But then, after a few plot twists in a row, The Winter Soldier does something that the normal blockbuster usually fails to do: it surprises you. It settles the difference between two separate timelines and mixes them with a tinge of Cold War paranoia. First and foremost, this is an action movie, and once everybody stops explaining things, The Winter Soldier delivers. This was one of the few times where I actually regretted not shelling out a few extra bucks for IMAX 3D. The Russo Brothers, perhaps known best for their work on TV comedies such as Arrested Development and Community, were an odd yet fun choice to helm The Winter Soldier.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is just part of the movie that I wanted to see. There are high stakes and tension, as well as an awesome performance by Robert Redford. However, to get to all of that, you have to slog through a muddle that is completely unsure of itself. Winter Soldier is a mess that only works sometimes. For the future, I hope Marvel works on separating its individual heroes from the universe somewhat. While I love world-building and characters who step out of their respective films and into another, it would be great if Marvel’s films could hold back a little bit and let the characters grow just as much as the mythology.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• In the beginning, Captain America shows he has a list of all of the things he missed when he traveled forward in time. Here are the ones I caught: “Berlin Wall, Nirvana (Band), Steve Jobs (Apple)”
• There’s a very small Pulp Fiction reference. Look closely. It’s brilliant.
• No, I don’t know why Garry Shandling is in this either.
• There is a part where Captain America and Black Widow have to hide out at Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) house. They say that they aren’t safe outside. He says it’s cool. It is almost exactly like a scene from Zoolander.
• I really wish they could have brought Loki into this. Speaking of which, I should probably watch the Thor movies now.
• With all of these crossovers, I have been trying to imagine if there were Disney-Marvel crossovers, given that Disney owns Marvel. So far, I have two: Elsa from Frozen is asked to join The Avengers; The Daily Bugle goes digital so they hire Dog With A Blog to be their new web editor.
• So much of this movie looks like it was shot on Google Maps. with a heavy use of Google Street View.
• Superheroes could probably defeat villains much faster if they didn’t spend so much time uploading stuff to hard drives.
• Now, how much longer until Guardians of the Galaxy comes out?