While this film is not "new" in the purest sense (it was made in 2017,) it is new in the sense that it is being pushed on Netflix right now at least in my area. It has a big budget, lots of stars, and a decent enough story in a thriller genre, but unfortunately, it is a massive snowy disappointment.
As always, I try to avoid all spoilers but if you like to enter a film blind you may wish to skip this
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Basically, i don't think this film is very good and for the most part it is not something I consider to be valuable. I believe that that they use the fact that there is a snowman involved to try to capitalize on their level of Christmas films but I can go ahead and confirm now that this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the Christmas spirit and unlike Die-Hard, i don't think there is really any wiggle-room for argument here.
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To keep this brief and spoiler-free I'll just be vague and say that in Oslo, Norway there is a killer that has emerged that instead of just killing seems to taunt the victims as well as authorities with riddles all based around a snowman (hence, the name of the film) and while we are only show bits of it, the killer stalks their victims by creating a snowman around their property to get them all freaked out before killing them.
For me, this portion of the film was ridiculous. I grew up in Nebraska where the winters are absolutely brutal, and even though i left there when i was 12 I know that there are only very specific temperature-specific situations in which snowman-creation is even possible at all. So that part of the movie made me upset. It also is very unlikely that you are going to be able to make an entire snowman without being noticed since by the end of it all, the bottom portion of your average snowman probably weighs as much as a person and used all the snow in the yard.
Ok, let's get away from the physical impossibility of a stealth-op and just focus on the good parts of the film.
Pros!
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- It was nice to see a non-fat, non-drug-addled Val Kilmer starring in this film... although i strongly believe that his lines may actually have been overdubbed because they don't seem to match his mouth in the scenes
- Most of the acting in an overall sense is actually very good and it is always a welcome addition to have J.K. Simmons in a film although his part in the movie is very brief.
- The scenery is stunning: I want to travel to visit Norway after seeing this film. I know lots of Norwegian people and none of them mentioned the beauty that this place possesses.
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This bridge scene in particular, i gotta find that spot some day man
Cons
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this is about as scary as it gets!
- Even though i mentioned before that i was happy to see Val Kilmer in this film not looking like he recently polished off both a buffet and a bus of meth, it appears as though his lines are overdubbed - which i wouldn't find surprising at all if that were true given his track record.
- The story is exceptionally difficult to follow and once the big ending happens there are a LOT of things that could have made arriving at that conclusion impossible... it's just too convoluted and doesn't make a great deal of sense
- The film takes place in Norway and everyone is speaking English with a WIDE variety of accents. There is a very real lack of continuity here. I know that most Norwegian people speak English, but no one in this film speaks English with a Norwegian accent.... also no one ever speaks Norwegian... ever.
- The biggest con? It's quite boring for the most part. Combine this with the fact that you have a really difficult time figuring WTF is going on, and it just doesn't make sense that this was made at all.
Overall conclusion
I think that since this film is 2 years old and has a snowy theme, we can conclude that it is pulled out of the closet every year during Christmas in order to lure people into watching it under the auspices that it is going to be a fun thriller or even a horror movie. It is none of these things.
In the end we have a mess of a movie that has too much going on at once and a villain that once they are revealed is so removed from the entire thing that it doesn't make even an iota of sense that they would ever have been who we were looking for in the first place. It isn't a "gotcha!" moment... it is a "oh give me a fucking break!" moment.
This film is not good and i suspect that is why they didn't make it available (at least obviously) on Netflix until the past couple of weeks.
This movie can easily be skipped and I recommend that you do precisely that. If you want to see a good thriller. Go watch a Korean movie and read the subtitles such as "Memories of Murder," I Saw the Devil," or if you are one of the few people unaware of it "Oldboy." None of these movies have anything to do with Christmas... but to be fair, neither does "The Snowman."
My overall rating 3 / 10
