Having Bill Paxton in your movie is a liability. The odds of your Paxton-filled movie being any good is pretty low, but some do come out of the woods. I mean, Tombstone was a moderate storyline that was saddled with Paxton's usual performance, Kurt Russel's performance, and Dana Delaney phoning it in. Were it not for Val Kilmer, that movie would be relegated to the dustbin of time.
This movie is about a future world where the snow started falling and never stopped. Surprisingly, it doesn't focus on the environmentalist aspects of this that are just kind of assumed. Instead, the survivors collect into colonies that have to deal with shrinking food supplies, generating power, and ferreting out illness. That is when this particular colony gets a distress call from a neighboring colony. Laurence Fishburne takes a couple of guys with him to solve the problem. They find evil bloodthirsty insane people who try to hunt everyone down.
It puts me in mind of 30 Days of Night with its isolation, limited supplies and options, and cannibalism. In this dystopian future, you also get the creepy bald dude who seems to control everyone around him without actually needing to speak. You also get the hot blonde who has managed to get eye shadow, lipstick, curlers, eyeliner, and an attractive hero to throw herself at.
It's kind of surprising that these people don't seem to have a very good system for dealing with any of their problems (or even the cold) despite the fact that they are the lone survivors who, presumably, can do this better than any of the other million or so people who died off. They don't even remember to zip up their jackets when they are outside.
The only bright spot in this movie would be the effects if it weren't for the lack of attention to detail. Blood was pooling and bright red even after it was supposed to have been exposed to the extreme cold for days. Body parts got hacked off cleanly when they should have been ragged. Stuff like that should be looked at closely, but I suspect they spent most of their money on CG snow and Morpheus.
Acting was patchy.
Effects were spotty.
Direction was iffy.
Editing was okay.
Story was indefensible.
Dialogue was predictable.
1.25/5