SNOWPIERCER

Do the locomotion

RELEASED 25 MAY 2013 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD

Director Bong Joon-ho

Cast Chris Evans, Song Kang Ho,

Tilda Swinton, John Hurt

Making a belated debut on disc in the UK, now with added post-Oscar halo for director Bong Joon-ho, Snowpiercer retains all the world-building energy of the French comic strip that inspired it.

Essentially JG Ballard with rolling stock, it’s the kind of gonzo high concept that could have found a home in vintage 2000 AD: after a man-made armageddon, the remnants of humanity ride a train that rattles through desolate ice-scapes and the ruins of cities. As Chris Evans leads an onboard insurrection we traverse the caste-conscious carriages, from squalid holding pens to opulent dining rooms, the truths of postapocalyptic society revealed with every advance, every new piece of production design.

While Evans makes for a vulnerable revolutionary, allowed to confide some personal horrors, the film is all but hijacked by Tilda Swinton as an officious functionary. All Deirdre Barlow specs, Austin Powers teeth and Jobseekers Pauline attitude, she’s just on the edge of caricature, a grotesque who also feels terrifyingly plausible.

Extras A French documentary (54 minutes) explores the film’s development through the eyes of the comic strip’s creators; drawing on candid footage from as early as 2006, it’s an authoritative look at the long haul of movie production. Less satisfying are interview snippets with Evans and Swinton and an equally surface-level look at the film’s characters (five minutes). Also included is “The End Of The World, And The New Beginning”, a brief, barely animated prologue that feels pretty inconsequential (one minute). Nick Setchfield

Essentially JG Ballard with rolling stock

Tilda Swinton’s character Minister Mason was originally intended to be a man, with John C Reilly in the frame to play him.