I love trains, and I like sci-fi. The post-apocalyptic thing has been done so many times that it's practically a subgenre of its own, but I kinda liked the idea here. We thought we had the solution to global warming, but we fucked up and basically sent our world into an ice age instead. Right, because they're going to implement this solution on a global scale on just the theory and word of a handful of scientists, without testing it small scale first or anything. Okay, so much for a new, intelligent idea. Well, it was new anyway.
And the train has been on this track non-stop for 18 years? When is maintenance on the track done, and by whom?
Also, we saw -- in fact, they made a point of showing -- several instances where the train "pierced" through mountainside sections of track that had been completely frozen, usually knocking the train off its wheels. That's completely stupid. If the impact is enough to knock the train up off its wheels like that, it is incredibly close to derailing. It simply defies logic that the train has been crashing through these blockages for 18 years, often getting knocked off balance, and has not had a catastrophic collision. Several collisions that we saw just during the length of the film translates to hundreds if not thousands of "close calls". And not a single actual derailment? No. Just no.
They passed through party cars, school cars, pool cars, nightclub cars... where do all these people live? It seems that the upper-class folk literally spend every moment "out" somewhere.
They opened one "gate" and it was the Oh Shit gate. An army of dudes with hatchets and axes. You know, large weighted blades on handles. Against the tail section guys with pipes and other blunt objects. How did this battle last more than a few minutes? Seriously, the tail section guys with their rocks and pointed sticks managed to disarm enough of the guys with axes to actually make a fight out of it? And they nearly won? Please.
I'm sorry, but it was one stupid scene after another, and never any explanation. Yes, there was exposition; that's not the same as explaining what we saw happening.
Okay, the acting was not always horrible. Sometimes it was slightly less than over-the-top and clichéd. Maybe it was because I was taken out of the movie so early by the sheer idiocy of the premise and its execution that I couldn't help seeing the acting as acting. I never bought any of the characters; they were all caricatures. The leader guy did things the leader guy does, gets upset all the times the leader guy should get upset, makes mistakes leaders often make. The underlings did their parts, too. They fought, they died, in all the ways they were supposed to. The heroic sacrifice by the number two guy. The revelation that the most trusted adviser was in fact working for the other side. Because none of that has ever been done before.
The final confrontation with Wilford was actually good. His explaining how everything was according to plan, the only way it could possibly be, and how he and Curtis were actually the same. Both filling a niche, serving a purpose, doing what needed to be done. Which is why Curtis was chosen to replace Wilford. It all made sense, and had the side-effect of explaining why everything up to that point was so formulaic and made me think for a moment that maybe the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek and I'd been watching the movie wrong for two hours. Then Curtis chose to throw it away and they crashed the train instead. Um... okay? That's the solution here? Destroy the ark with the last remnants of the human race, because you don't like what you found out about how it all works, how it has to work?
And then... a polar bear!