Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4

Some have called Tomas Alfredson a cold director after making Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,  so it would only seem logical that his latest film would take us to bitterly cold Norway about a serial killer with a frozen heart in The Snowman.

Each year with the newly fallen snow The Snowman Killer strikes, leaving the head of his victims as the head of a snowman that he builds after the killing.  Harry Hole, played by Michael Fassbender, is an alcoholic detective needing to find purpose in his life again and he believes that the Snowman Killer case will help him find purpose in his life again. Harry however might have finally met his match with the latest serial killer stalking the snow covered streets.     

Like most people I adored Let the Right One and I kept hoping that Tomas Alfredson would continue making more dramas filled with compelling characters and rich themes that would be stuck in your thoughts for months to come.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a critical hit but it never seemed to find it’s target audience, which might be one of the reasons I have yet to see that film. While the film has been on my radar since its release,  I haven’t taken the plunge yet with the spy film.  The Snowman is based of a book written by Norwegian author Jo Nesbø.  From my understanding, the books are airport novels like the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child who takes characters who seems to be perfect and throw them into situations no ordinary person could overcome.  In order to make that story compelling, however, you need to have phenomenal actors who can make us empathize with someone who seems nearly inhuman.

When you cast fantastic actors like Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, J.K. Simmons, and Toby Jones, you expect to get a film with so many good performances that you cannot decide which actor gives the best performance.  Instead what I ended up wondering was which actor actually had coffee before they showed up to the set.  Every performance in the film is entirely lifeless, it feels that they are reading the script for the first time and feeling as they are reading.  Ferguson was the breakout star of Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation and has given good performances in bad films like The Girl on the Train.  She can give truly moving and empathetic performances which is what her character Katrine Bratt needed to be, she needed to be the character who the audience relates with the most since she is the reason most of the plot gets going.  A surprising act occurs during the third act of the film that you as an audience member should be left feeling something, but I was left feeling completely apathetic which sends the entire third act of the film into a downward spiral.  While other actors like Simmons and Jones were basically given glorified cameos in an attempt to make the mystery of the film more compelling.   Instead, all it does is add unnecessary fat to a film.  

I never thought I would come to a day where I would say that Tom Cruise plays a character type better than one of the best working actors, Michael Fassbender.  When it becomes a battle between thespian and movie star I usually would side with the thespian. In The Snowman Fassbender gives one of his weakest performances and it’s not that he isn’t trying, but he is given nothing to work with.   On the other side, I would argue that the character of Jack Reacher in Jack Reacher isn’t that compelling either, but Cruise gives you a character with motivations that you understand and you are rooting for him to succeed with his detective work.  While in The Snowman I was never rooting for a single aspect of the film other than wishing the running length of the film was shorter.  Fassbender either needs a new agent or needs to realize that his name is not a selling point to the general populous.  After starring in films like Assassin’s Creed and Song to Song you cannot help but feel a sense of sadness for this man who has turned in outstanding performances in films like X-Men: First Class and 12 Years a Slave.  I’m always rooting for Fassbender to become a household name; but every time Fassbender chooses to do films like this, where he is given nothing to work with, the likelihood of my aspirations for him get diminished.  

While wasting talented actors is a horrible film sin, the greater sin is wasting an audience's time.  The running length of the film is two hours,  but unfortunately you only need half hour to tell the story at hand, while the rest of the film has needless curveballs and plots that lead on aimlessly.  You are left to question as to why you chose to watch this film.  I find watching snow fall to be one of the most beautiful and tranquil experiences,  I found watching The Snowman to be one of the most tedious films of the year to watch.  

It’s nearly impossible for a movie to be entirely bad and while The Snowman does come close, I would like to mention the one good element of the film which would be the cinematography.  Cinematographer Dion Beebe, who also shot Collateral and Chicago, brings us some visually wonderful shots of the Norwegian landscapes and towns.  Even during moments when the action that is occurring onscreen is completely dumbfounding, the visual composition is always great to look at.  In fact watching The Snowman made me realize I would rather have spent my time watching films looking at flights to Norway rather than watching this mystery unfold.    

The Snowman had all the elements to be one of the best films of the year, which is the most infuriating element of the film, but the end result was a borderline catastrophe.  I have come to expect better from director Tomas Alfredson and Michael Fassbender, and if they think that The Snowman is a masterpiece of filmmaking that belongs shelf space next to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Jack Reacher then they have some serious soul searching to do.

Rating: Let It Burn

-Jonny G