The odds were stacked against Snowpiercer from the start, it seems, which is weird because it has everything a blockbuster hit needs these days. An all-star cast (Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell and John Hurt all figure heavily), a capable and popular director of proven hits, based on a comic book, and unnecessarily long. Its just that, that cast also involved a lot of South Korean actors, the director is The Hosts Bong Joon-ho, and it was based on a French comic about a train rattling across a post-apocalyptic Earth where the class structure is maintained by poor people sitting at the back shovelling coal so rich people at the front can live in luxury. The Weinstein Company buried the film after buying the US rights for it, meaning after a very brief theatrical run it was dumped on DVD and Netflix. Which actually works out well for audiences, because now nobody has an excuse for not watching one of the weirdest, most radical and balls-to-the-walls science fiction films of all time. Just to reiterate: this is a film where Captain America, Billy Elliot, and Spud from Trainspotting try to enact a revolution on a mega-train hurtling through the New Ice Age. YOURE WELCOME.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
