This week’s movie releases
Set on a train circling an icy future Earth, ‘Snowpiercer’ is a sci-fi thriller to get excited about
At last a sci-fi action thriller to get excited about. The smart and ravishing-looking Snowpiercer marks the English-language debut of South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho, director of police procedural Memories of Murder (2003) and Seoul-set creature feature The Host (2006). Based on a 1982 French graphic novel by Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette and Benjamin Legrand, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic future where an attempt to revert global warming has plunged the world into a new ice age. What remains of humankind now trundles along aboard an enormous train that endlessly circles the globe, with the rich living the good life up front and the poor suffering at the back. Tired of his lot, one man, played by Captain America star Chris Evans, leads his fellow tail-enders on their latest revolt attempt. The international cast also features The Host stars Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung, as well as Jamie Bell, John Hurt and Tilda Swinton. The movie has apparently been the cause of dispute between Bong and distributor Harvey Weinstein, who, according to reports, wanted to trim it by 20 minutes for release in English-speaking territories. Happily, this seems to have been resolved and will be released uncut in the States in June, as it is now in Spain.
After solid supporting turns in The Company Men, Man of Steel and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Kevin Costner continues his comeback by taking top billing in McG-directed, Luc Besson-penned action thriller 3 Days to Kill. Costner plays a spy trying to juggle his final mission to find a wanted terrorist with looking after his estranged teenage daughter.
New dad Seth Rogen and frat boy Zac Efron face off in Neighbors, the latest comedy from Get Him to The Greek writer-director Nicholas Stoller. Rose Byrne, Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Lisa Kudrow also feature.
Directed by Emilio Aragón, once part of Spanish TV clown troupe, Los payasos de la tele, road movie A Night in Old Mexico features Robert Duvall as an old cowboy forced to sell his ranch. He decides to go searching for adventure south of the border with the twentysomething grandson (Jeremy Irvine) he has only just met in tow. Support comes from Colombian actress Angie Cepeda and Spain’s Luis Tosar.
Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara play a couple of Bonnie and Clyde-style robbers in 1970s Texas in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, the second film from director David Lowery. When Mara accidentally shoots cop Ben Foster, Affleck takes the rap but is soon busting out of prison to reunite with his beloved and the daughter he has yet to meet.
Dinner date
The Food Guide to Love is a Spanish-Irish-French-produced romantic soufflé featuring British actor Richard Coyle as a Dublin restaurant critic with a disastrous love life who falls for Spanish curator Leonor Watling, despite them having nothing in common.
Nine years since his last feature, Ramón Salazar steps back behind the camera for 10.000 noches en ninguna parte, which stars Andrés Gertrúdix as a man who embarks on journey from Madrid to Paris and Berlin to recover his lost memories. Lola Dueñas, Najwa Nimri and Susi Sánchez co-star.
