Movie Review – Snowpiercer – can humanity survive anything...?

 

Movie Review

Snowpiercer

I saw an edited clip of this movie on one of those Facebook videos, where it shows a very dramatic part and then doesn't tell you the name of the movie. Luckily, the comments helped me out, and I found the film. Within an hour, I was sat down watching it. Two hours later, and here I am.

Let me show you the cover, and let you know what it's about, and then we can get to chatting!

After a failed global-warming experiment, a post-apocalyptic Ice Age has killed off nearly all life on the planet. All that remains of humanity are the lucky few survivors that boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system has evolved aboard the train, fiercely dividing its population—but a revolution is brewing. The lower-class passengers in the tail section stage an uprising, moving car-by-car up toward the front of the train, where the train’s creator and absolute authority resides in splendor. But unexpected circumstances lie in wait for humanity’s tenacious survivors... 

Amazon UK

It's also available for free on Prime Video!

My Review

There is quite a bit to unload about this film. It covers some incredibly topical subjects, as well as including some themes that are incredibly prevalent in society.

A solution was found to global warming, a way to reverse the effects that humans have had on the planet, and to reverse the climate to it's natural state – a way to cool down the planet to the optimal temperature. Of course, such a perfect fix would be too easy, and instead, the solution caused a massive problem. The creation of a new Ice Age, the kind of thing that could wipe humans off the planet and rid the Earth of them once and for all.

Fortunately, humans are pesky things, and simply refuse to be wiped out. Although a low number, some survive aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the world, never stopping, keeping it's inhabitants safe from the freezing conditions outside. It all seems idillic – but, again, not so.

There is a very clear class divide, with the lower classes at the tail end of the train, and the rich at the front. While the rich feast, party, and enjoy life, the poor starve in poor conditions, with little room, their lives controlled entirely by those with power.

And yet, there are those who simply cannot stand for it. This movie is about a revolt, the revolt to end all revolts. It's about taking back power, and Curtis is one of those who can't sit by and watch as children are torn away from their parents, as people are beaten and punished, as his friends slowly starve around him.

The rebellion leads Curtis and a group through the train, moving along the carriages. The carriages are almost like stages, complete one and then you can move on. But Curtis loses people along the way, and what ensues as the rebels clash with the guards trying to quell the rebellion is pure carnage.

Curtis is a clearly troubled man. He has spent seventeen years of his life trapped inside the dingy, ignored part of the train, surrounded by desperate people. The horrors that he has seen and experienced is enough to give someone the determination to want to seek justice and revenge, but at times Curtis can be incredibly cold towards those who are supposedly on his side. There is on scene in particular (if you've seen the movie, you know) where I was almost screaming at the screen. I actually said out loud 'don't you dare'. He dared. I was very upset.

There are many other characters in this movie that I liked. I loved Namgoong Minsu and Yona, and they played an incredibly interesting part in the plot. They are not from the tail end of the train, but the prison. But, if Curtis wants to open any of the carriage doors, he needs them. Yona was one of my absolute favourite characters, especially since you can usually see her doing something in the background, and it's usually rather amusing.

Another character I adored was Edgar, who just wants to help Curtis, and to be his friend, and yet, Curtis doesn't seem to care about the determination Edgar has to help. Edgar made me chuckle a couple of times, as he is young compared to most of the people he is around, at only seventeen, and all he really wants is to be able to eat a steak like those at the front of the train.

I have had a look at some other reviews for this movie, those on Amazon, and there seems to be a mixed opinion about it, with some people loving it and some people absolutely hating it. While I wouldn't say it was the best movie I have ever watched, it certainly wasn't bad, and I enjoyed watching it. I won't spoil the ending, but whew. I don't think the characters planned that!

And I'm done!

I haven't sat down to watch a new movie in ages, and I'm glad this popped up in one of those strange Facebook videos, because otherwise I wouldn't have looked in the comments for the title, then wouldn't have looked the movie up, and certainly wouldn't have found it by accident to watch.

If you've seen it, I'd love to know what you thought of it!

Okay, that's all.

Bye!

Places To Read, An Unintentional Multipart Short Story Series – Part 10

  

In an imagined reading haven

Everyone has a fantastical place that they want to sit and read in. This is mine...

When you open the door, you are immediately engulfed in books. The long wall of the room is a bookshelf, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and it is full to bursting with books of all kinds, many of which you have not read yet, but bought with the thought that some day, you will get around to reading them.

The room is dim, not dark, but the window doesn't let in too much light. The sound of rain pattering against it is all you can hear, and you watch for a moment as the raindrops race each other down the window pane, pooling at the bottom before they drip to the ground outside.

You flick on the fairy lights and the room is bathed in their soft glow from where they are strung, around the room and above your head, across the ceiling.

The room is cool, but that gives you the perfect opportunity to go to the fireplace, on the wall opposite the bookcases, and kneel down to light a small fire, adding kindling when the sparks turn to flames. The sound of the soft crackling and popping joins the pitter patter of rain, and the warmth immediately jumps to fill the room.

You walk to the bookcase and pluck a book off the shelf, skimming the back cover before putting it back and picking up another. By the time you finally decide on one, the room is pleasantly warm and cosy.

Not too cosy, of course, to sit down in your oversized armchair, sinking into the pillows. You pull a blanket across your lap, and reach for the small table at the side of the armchair, the perfect distance away for placing a cup on. You pick up a cup of steaming hot chocolate, marshmallows melting on top, and take a sip before setting it back down and opening the book to the first page.

The sun starts to set outside, and the light dims even more, the light from the small bulbs around the room aiding you in seeing the words on the page and the fire casting flickering shadows around the room as it starts to die down. You have long since finished your hot chocolate, but the room is too warm and comfortable for you to even think about leaving it. Besides, you have an excuse to stay – you can't leave the fire alone.

You get up, stretching out your limbs, numb from being sat in the same place for so long, and close the curtains, barely muffling the sound of the rain, joined now by the whistling of the wind through the leaves of the trees outside.

You make your way back to your chair and curl up again, picking your book back up and pulling the blanket tighter around you, sighing in contentment as you begin reading the next chapter.

The fire has gone out, but the fairy lights still shine down on you as you rub at your bleary eyes and push the hair out of your face. Somehow, as you slept, you managed to wrap the blanket around yourself like a cocoon, and as you try to escape the blanket's embrace, you hear the soft thud of your book falling to the carpet. You lean over and pick it up, placing it on the table next to your empty cup.

You won't make it a habit, but curling back up and going to sleep wouldn't do any harm. You get up briefly to turn off the fairy lights, and curl back up in your blanket haven.

Doing something every evening isn't a habit, right?

And that's number 10!

Where's the trumpets and the fanfares?!

Pretend you can hear them.

I figured the last instalment in this series should be my imagined library in my imagined house in the country. In case you were wondering, the bookcases and the table are both wooden, and the books are all stacked haphazardly on the bookcase, some upright and some sideways. I haven't quite imagined the colour of the walls or the carpet yet.

Does everyone have a place that they have created in their mind, that would be just perfect for reading, or is it just me?!

Okay, that's all I have for now.

Bye!

A Review – Lucid: REM World Trilogy, Book One by L. R. Evans

Lucid:

REM World Trilogy, Book One

by L. R. Evans

A Review

I never, ever (ever, ever, ever) enter giveaways. As in never. I think in my whole life, I've entered maybe two. So I'm not sure what it was that drew me in so spectacularly, but I saw that there was a giveaway going on for this book on Twitter.

And I thought, you know what? It has a couple more days left to go. I'll enter.

And the end of the giveaway came around and lo and behold, I had a Twitter notification from the author telling me that I had won! Now, that day, I wasn't very well, and I spent the entirety of the day curled up in bed under a pile of blankets, and receiving that notification, and the following conversation I had with the author, brightened my day up exponentially.

So, enough chit chat, let me introduce the book, and then get into the review!

Thirty-one, funeral director, London. That’s pretty much all Julian Desmond remembers from his waking life.

He wakes in a dimension that can only be accessed via dreams (REM World).

A rock monster tells him dreams are real and they can kill him. The Resistance promises to protect him, but when he receives his Gift of premonition, he learns it’s at a price.

Laughing Man seems clueless, harmless, even doltish. But he’s evidently destined to join forces with an immortal tyrant.

Julian chooses to save his life. He intends to use him as leverage, but as the nights wear on and he grows more powerful, will he come to regret it?

A harrowing journey of self-destruction, addiction, grief, trauma, and healing.

Amazon UK • Amazon US

My review...!

REM sleep is the phase of sleep wherein you dream vividly. Reading this book is almost like dreaming vividly for hours upon hours. It's not that you can't wake up, or put the book down – it's possible, of course, but when people are asleep, in a dream that they are enjoying, waking up is the last thing they want to do.

Julian Desmond wakes up in a strange room, unable to remember where he was or how he got there. When a statue in the room starts to move, starts to speak to him, Julian freaks out. He tries to run, but to no avail. It seems there is no escape from this strange place.

The statue, who calls himself Jax, and Julian are joined by Rylann, an older woman with a head of rainbow hair. Julian slowly starts to understand the situation as it is explained – he is asleep, dreaming, and has woken up in REM.

The world that Julian finds himself in, is a world of seeming chaos, with a war raging outside of the Resistance bunker, and different worlds converging into one. Julian finds himself face to face with a hippodamus, dryads, and a vision of a laughing man, a premonition that showed the man leading a reign of terror alongside Lord Titus, REM's great tyrant.

Yet, when he comes face to face with the laughing man, he is not at all as expected.

This book is a whirlwind, to say the least! When we join Julian, he is as clueless as the reader, having lost his memory. As he gets flashbacks, and slowly regains snapshots of his life in the waking world, both he and the reader start to piece together the puzzle that is Julian Desmond.

One thing I liked about this book in particular was that many different things are represented, and that the characters react accordingly to certain situations. For Julian, knowing that he comes from 1720, trying to come to terms with the fact that he is attracted to, and feels a bond with, several of the male characters in this novel was interesting, and written exceptionally well. He doesn't want to accept who he is, because it is a crime, blasphemous. Yet, no one around him thinks so, the rest of the characters from the modern day. This book should not be viewed with discrimination, for it is all about acceptance, about learning who you really are and coming to terms with the fact that nothing's going to change who you are, so the sooner you find your friends in the world, the better. 

There are several characters that I really enjoyed reading about. One of these is Julian, for obvious reasons! He is not only the main character, but a compelling protagonist, and I thoroughly enjoyed following him on the journey of trying to figure out who his friends are, and indeed, who he is. Despite everything stacked against him, I also really liked Miles. He is a fun, carefree type of person, and he was, for the most part, a very fun character to read about.

The world that has been created between the covers of this book is astounding, the kind that you can imagine vividly. It is one that you want to go to and never ever visit, both at the same time. There were a few moments when I found myself slightly lost in the story, mainly in action scenes, where things moved a little too quickly and I grew confused as to the events that were transpiring. However, this seems to generally be answered by the fact that Julian also does not know what is happening.

This book ends as a television series might end, on the brink of everything. Everything has built up to this one moment, and then the screen fades to black, the last page is turned. There's even a dramatic closing line. It is the kind of thing that makes fans so incredibly hyped for the next series (or book!) that they start theorising, guessing what will happen next, desperate for more. I looked up when this book came out and I was DISTRAUGHT to learn that it has only been out for two and a half months, which means I will likely have to wait for AGES for book 2!

And done!

It did take me several days to read this book, mainly because I had a busy week the week I decided to start reading this book. At one point, I was so engrossed in the story that I accidentally spilt water all over myself, and just continued sitting where I was, with wet legs, because I didn't want to put the book down.

Thank you so much to the author for sending me a copy of this book, I really enjoyed reading it and cannot WAIT for book 2!

Bye!