Having not seen last year’s Elysium, I can’t say for certain whether its 1% vs. 99% allegory was as aggressively heavy-handed as its many critics seemed to think (this, of course, being a movie about social inequality distributed by a major studio, and trumpeting a “PLZ SAVE US, PRETTY WHITE MAN” arc in its posters). I’ve heard less griping about on-the-nose social commentary from fans of Snowpiercer. This is likely because A) Snowpiercer is just a flat-out better movie, and B) it’s directed by Joon-Ho Bong, so it’s got a heaping helping of South Korean weirdness mixed into its story of class warfare to help lighten the mood.

Starting in the caboose of a class-divided train (rabble in the back, elite up front) that happens to be the last bastion of human life on an apocalyptically frozen Earth, Snowpiercer is a heavily compartmentalized film both in its structure and tone. Early on it’s a gritty powder keg, one that goes off and explodes into large-scale close-quarters violence. Later it’s a bizarre and comic world-building wonderland, and later still, a space-age social deconstruction essay. Yet, the many hats Snowpiercer wears are always present in each stage of the film’s story, which sees Chris Evans’ generically likeable Curtis pushing a revolution forward, the literally unwashed masses fighting, car by car, to get a better seat at the table.

The characters of Snowpiercer aren’t terribly well defined or deep as individual people, but there’s a strong diversity in the casting that makes each of them distinctive. None of the good guys gets to be as flamboyant as Tilda Swinton, camping it up wonderfully as one of the ruling oligarchy’s puppets, but they each have individual goals and shades of personality. John Hurt is a lot of fun as an old mentor who’s more coatrack than man, Octavia Spencer is solid as a mother in search of her son, and Bong regulars Kang-Ho Song and Ah-sung Ko provide comic relief and pathos as a frequently drugged-out father-daughter pairing.

Snowpiercer crams tons of oddball humor and interesting spins on sci-fi staples into its on-rails world, which helps to both prevent the film from taking the class warfare metaphor too seriously, and excuses the fact that very little of this world makes much sense. It’s a big ol’ pell-mell of ideas, tones, and designs, which naturally makes for a bumpy journey. The climax, in particular, suffers from trying to define a method to the madness, ending up being a slogging attempt by Bong (and his well-cast mouthpiece) to talk his way into a conclusion for a film that’s thus far run just fine on sheer momentum. Snowpiercer lacks consistency, but doesn’t have a one-track mind either. It’s an evocative, exhilarating, and unique ride that I’d recommend you take.