Snowpiercer review: Netflix adaptation doesn’t have the anger and frenzied momentum of Bong Joon-ho’s sleeper hit, but it’s still a riveting ride

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Before Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar triumph with Parasite, his best-known film in Britain and the US was probably the sci-fi action thriller Snowpiercer, an adaptation of a French graphic novel. Like Parasite, Snowpiercer is a fable about class and capitalism, but rather than the walled mansions and sub-basement flats of Seoul, it takes as its setting an alternate-reality Earth where scientists went too far in their efforts to prevent global warming and inadvertently caused an ice age. With temperatures outside hundreds of degrees below celsius, the few thousand survivors live on an enormous train endlessly circumnavigating the globe, run by a reclusive tycoon called Mr Wilford.

Many years into their trip, the passengers are stratified into classes so strict that they are practically castes. At the front of the train, first class enjoys sushi and spa treatments, while those at the back are fed on mysterious lumps of black jelly and have their arms frozen off if they step out of line. (The depiction of a cramped endless journey through a post-apocalyptic wasteland may be triggering to Southern Rail customers.) Fed up with their treatment, the people at the back mutiny, led by Chris Evans. It’s a dark, funny, violent, furious film, blessed by the clarity of its geography. The good guys are at the back, the villains are at the front and nobody can go outside.

With all the inevitability of the modern TV world, in which no good content be left unmolested, Snowpiercer has been turned into a 10-part Netflix series, with Bong aboard (lol) as one of the producers, as well as fellow auteur Park Chan-wook, among others. The broad strokes and design are similar to the film, but with more hours to fill on the new platform (lmao) it has to take a more leisurely pace, and there are significant departures (rofl) from the original.

Daveed Diggs stars as Andre Layton, a former homicide detective who is now a “tailie”, having stowed away as it was boarding. At the other end of the train is the lesser-spotted Jennifer Connelly as Melanie Cavill, the “Voice of the Train”, who announces Mr Wilford’s directives over the PA. Except there’s a twist: Melanie is Mr Wilford, a secret known only to her engineers. Melanie recruits Layton to investigate a murder in third class, where he bumps into his old flame Zarah (Sheila Vand).

Given the longer running time, it’s not surprising that Snowpiercer the TV series can’t match the frenzied momentum of the film, but there are compensations. The design is bigger and bolder, and although the new procedural elements ramble a bit, they allow Layton to explore some of the wonder-train’s thousand cars in more detail. As usual, third class looks much more fun than first. We see a farm, an aquarium, a nightclub, a cattle car, a butcher, and a mysterious morgue-like facility in which wrongdoers are imprisoned in sleep-stasis. Given the circumstances, being put to sleep for a few years doesn’t seem like the worst option. There’s even a train-within-the-train, a kind of mail-rail beneath the carriage floors. Diggs and Connelly make the best of their parts, especially Connelly as the icy hostess just about keeping it together. There’s a sensitive supporting turn by Mickey Sumner (daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler) as Bess Till, the Railman – a kind of train police officer – charged with keeping an eye on Layton as he conducts his investigation.

I suspect your enjoyment of Snowpiercer the TV show will depend on how much you like the core idea. You could make the case that this is grim, silly dystopian sci-fi, a comic-book idea that got out of hand. I think it’s a fabulous premise, realised here with less anger than in the film, but equal wit and imagination and the same clarity of setting. A second season is already in the works, with Sean Bean reportedly joining the cast. I wouldn’t want to bet on whether he makes it off the train alive, but I’m here for the ride (roflmao).