The Snowman reviewed by Mark Kermode 

I love that Mark missed Simons “He knows how to chill you” joke

0:44 I live for these Kermode vs Mayo moments! Where else can you find two grown men disagreeing (slightly passive-aggressively!) about the merits of whether or not snowmen are intrinsically scary!

"scary looking snowmen" "...no, snowmen"

It's an absolute shame considering the talent behind it.

Did anyone else realise there was parts in the trailer missing from the actual film? The house burning down, the bear trap who the girl walks into in the snow?

I just saw this and I thought it bordered on parody in the vein of "A Touch of Cloth". Considering who is involved in this - it's awful!

Poor Thelma. This is not something I'd want on my editing CV, even though you can't blame her for the lack of actual footage shot during production. I suspect it would have been unreleasable without her.

Saw it last night. Appalling. One of the worst films I've seen in a long time.

Popcorn by Hot Butter was the real star of the film. What a great song. I wish they just played on a loop for 2 hours.

Yo Nesbo! As a Norwegian I love Jo Nesbø's books, and with the casting of Fassbender I was pretty psyched about it, but considering all the awful reviews I haven't even bothered to watch it. Maybe Morten Tyldum should have directed it, he did a great job with Nesbø's Headhunters.

It was worrying early on when someone referred to an obstetrician as a "pregnancy doctor."

Kermode and Mayo simultaneously love and hate each other, it's magic.

Saw this today. Very disappointing. Reminded me of a very bad 1990s BBC crime drama that had the opportunity with that cast to do much more. Like a very very bad episode of The Bridge or an ok episode of Ultimate Force. Val Kilmer is just awful to watch and the sound was not linking to the action at any time he spoke. A lot of it made little sense and as great as I think Fassbender can be he is certainly in 3 of my least favourite films this year (Assassins Creed and Alien).

I’m learning how to say ‘I don’t know’ in that husky Fassbender style, could be useful in certain situations.

I completely agree with this review. Nowhere near lived up to my expectations and what was Val Kilmer up to???

Damn it

Just got back from seeing this and yes, it's a total mess. It meanders all over, picking up plot threads only to drop them in the next scene, with many of them amounting to nothing. In fact you could cut half of the scenes without it making any difference to the outcome. There are entire sub plots that don't add anything and inconsequential characters which leave you scratching your head as to what their point is. The end of the film it truly awful, possibly one the weakest finales I've seen for a while, with the behavior of some characters being truly idiotic. All of the cast phones it in, including a bizarre turn by Val Kilmer which does look like a poorly dubbed, CGI of him. One thing I did note was that the trailer appears to advertise a very different film; half of the scenes pictured aren't actually in the final cut of the film, almost a la Rogue One. Oh and the snow man motif is really silly, I found it to be more inadvertently funny than creepy.

Folding Ideas covers this film in depth. Great channel, well worth the watch.

It left me cold.

Film Brain dissects the disaster of a production and why they weren't even able to get enough coverage. They had to cobble together some semblance of a film in post-production.

This film has been ripped to shreds by Norwegian critics. It's a shame, this film should have been at least decent.

So true. I'm a huge Fassbender fan too and a fan of murder mystery/serial killer films and it was a massive discombobulating mess.

'the film didnt know where it was going, or why it was going there'

Damn that's a shame. Tinker Tailor was an underappreciated masterpiece.

Not sure why Michael Fassbender has to put on an English accent to play a Norwegian.

The director, Thomas Alfredson himself said that they were so rushed that they neglected to shoot 10% - 15% of the script! Somehow they only became aware of this when it came to editing the film, and scrambled to do the best they could by bringing in Thelma Schoonmaker. This movie was so jumbled and incoherent, I laughed out several times. Val Kilmer's cameo was weird as hell. They dubbed his voice because he was/is getting over a battle with throat cancer. I'm not kidding. (why hire him to begin with?) This was a train wreck. I giant misfire.

I just watched it on Amazon Prime and it was fine.

Is 'The Snowman' a long awaited sequel to the cinematic masterpiece 'Snow Dad'??? ("Snow Dad Is Better Than No Dad!"). (Tag line suggestion for 'The Snowman': "Snow HEAD is better than Snow DEAD!" (Badum-tish!)...Nope? I'll get my coat!)

And the marketing for the film is/was stupid!

Seriously, detective Harry Hole?

Jim Morrison errrrrrr Val Kilmer still acting!

Any reason why your videos aren't in HD?

Saw the trailer and my immediate thought was 'LoL I dont think so!'

Yes, very hard to put the finger on why it didn't work...and I really wanted it to work!

but.. but the trailer looked so great and intriguing D:

Does he have another big Magneto final battle???

5:06 hahahahaha OMG

I kept laughing throughout the movie. And this review also have me laughing. Best involountary comedy in years. :)

Does it at least follow the book?

We're walking in the air!

What a Shame, Fassbender just can't seem to find good roles these days.

I thought it was ridicules of them to have this take place in Norway. As a Norwegian myself it only took me out of the film.

cocked up the main actors synergy on this, fassbender can be a bit of a cold actor, thats usually fine when he is matched with someone warm, ferguson is cold and 2 dimensional, thus when those two headline a film, the outcome is no emotional investment.

The movie doesn't give justice to the book. Probably because they changed nearly everything. The book was awesome! I could not guess the murderer, even in a scene where it was quite obvious! The book towers the movie in comparison!

Was this a case of the trailer spoiling the ending by having Val Kilmer's name pop up in the trailer ? To be fair that was the reason why i never saw last weekend, i think i dodged a magnum on that one (ice cream puns aren't my forte)

I was pretty shocked by how poor this was. It's like a spoof film of a Scandi Noir series ( the equivalent of a Scary Movie film)

"Yo! Nesbo!

The director said they didn't even get to shoot 15% of the script.

lol Mark said "I think it was a real SHAME" heheh no pun intended

A "murderous gimmick" lifted from Dario Argento's 'Trauma', surprised MK didn't spot that.

I couldn't agree more with Mark, I was looking forward to this one from the trailer as I just love a good murder mystery, but this film was beyond disappointing, I had no idea what they were thinking, the tone was serious, the cast was good, but I felt that they were trying to sell us something that was no reflected in the final product, watch the Ritual instead.

A Really cheap version of the ‘Ice Truck Killer’ save your money and buy the DEXTER boxset!

SPOILER sort of... Completely agree with the review. A big let-down. In addition to Mark's points I think the audience can guess the killer quite early on... leaving Harry Hole looking like an average detective at best as he never really works it out for himself. Plus the ending felt like it belonged to a different film.

I forgot all about Tinker Tailor and it sounds like Mark liked it, guess I will just watch that instead.

Saw the trailer plenty of times advertised on RU-vid, and I always felt like it was a joke, almost like a pretend movie that was really a car commercial in disguise or something.

I only got this movie today and I've only seen a few chapters and I like it so I'm guessing I will like all of it and I don't care what you say to me it's my opinion and I'm allowed it

When I first saw the trailer for this I genuinely thought it was going to be a parody.

Why does Fassbender sound like an alien in the clip lol?

The book was amazing and I believe that the movie, in it's own way was good. But if you compare it to the AMAZING book, it sucked. It was totally different and didnt feel like an adaption at all. But the trailer said it was only based on the book so idk. I've read the book and it was interesting that they changed everything, because I was always surprised, yet I knew the characters

I like this film, i don't understand the hate for it. It's definitely not as bad as Mark is making it out to be, okay its nothing brilliant...but its decent and watchable. I'm quite surprised by the negativity☹

Not even Scorsese's editor can save you when you forget to film 25% of the script.

Snowmen are pretty darn big so all they half to do is ask if anyone has seen a grown man building snowmen or since its snowy just follow the footprints.

I read one novel (the first one) by Nesbo to see what was so great about him. Dunno, maybe it gets better with later books but I didn't care for it. The Millennium trilogy on the other hand was brilliant. I read like 100-150 pages straight, it was so interesting and couldn't go to sleep cause I thought about it all the time.

'The Snowman' isn't terrible, but it doesn't really work. It so wanted to be taken seriously, like 'Morse', but reminded me more of a 'Midsomer Murders' farce. The central premise is just too ludicrous and the rest of the film doesn't hang too well on it. I also agree that the direction was a bit chaotic too. 2/5

A real shame, the book is great. The trailer was dreadful and i feared they'd dropped the ball...turns out they did.

The film woulda been a lot better if they followed the book

Apparently they ran out of time, not being able to film about 10% of the script. Dammit, that's all there is to say. Really hoping Alfredson's career isn't ruined after this.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy more than got away from Alfredson too. Made a fantastic movie in Sweden but his pacing has been awful in his two English language films.

Wait, isn't this a review for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?

Michael needs a new team STAT!

Really cracking up at Simon missing Val Kilmer

Nowhere near as dark and gripping as the book! The terror element of the book is missing from the film

It was such a great book too! It's a shame it went that way

Stick to the audiobooks read by Sean Barrett. They're brilliant.

Was Val Kilmer a spoiler? Hadn't seen him in any trailers

Scary looking snowmen NO. Snowmen.

It's been well documented and written about that there were widespread production issues with this film. So why is Mark saying "It seems to me although it's just my speculation that this film got away from the film makers". Really Mark? Wow, you just happen to come up with that all by yourself?

also the cinematography..dont get why he opted to go digital..looks inferior to his last two films.

Val Kilmer has been seriously ill of late, i wonder in Mark knew of this?

No, man.

Detective Hairy Hole!?

I saw the trailer and was looking to seeing this..might still do but by all accounts it's a big waste of a good cast and material

2/5 i hate to say that but there you are

Was so bored by this film, I dozed off a couple of times- which has happened before in the cinema, but this was the first time I didn't actually care.

This movie had the most trope filled trailer ever cut, to the point where I openly laughed in the theatre when I saw it. The movie itself is pretty bad, and I can't say I'm surprised. Question: is it down to the source material, or is it the adaptation of the source material that makes this movie so bad?

Jo can be pronounced as the english "Joe". You can try pronouncing it like "Jo", but hey

Mark seems a little cranky... I read the book and finally all the Jo Nesbo novels. They are great! Will not go to the theaters to see it, though.

I think this film is underrated with interesting performances, some very tense scenes and some different ideas, it works for me as a film noir in a gritty Nordic way, Michael fassbenders character simply wasn't as tortured as his character in Shame a similar of self hatred would have been inauthentic.

Those chairs need arms

not as bad as everyone is making out but the killer was obvious after 20 minutes 😂

What a disappointing movie. I only save Fassbender (I give him a 7 in acting, a 4 in picking his projects!), and the Norwegian landscape and atmosphere. I had read the book, and enjoyed it. The screenplay changes the plot to the point of making it unrecognisable, but most of all to the point that it makes no sense any more.

mayo is such a putz

I am one of those people who has a knack for predicting any plot twists or the big "whodunit" but this was "heavy rain" levels of predictable and lazy writing. Heavy rain is a video game by David Cage and Quantic dreams, David cage places an emphasis on storytelling, changeable plot points and original plot whilst at every halfway point of each of his games the story falls to pieces and becomes ridiculous. Whilst watching this I thought of "Heavy rain" and David cage's games. Trying too hard to be different and failing to be anything but a mess. I mean (SPOILERS), id predicted that Harry Hole wasn't the kid in the start and that was one of the films attempted swerves and by the train scene id figured out Mathias was the killer and that this your typical "Im taking out something that happened to me on other people by targetting people who have done to others what happened to me" sctick. One of my biggest gripes however was near the end when Harry had his gun drawn and aimed ahead of him and instead of shooting Mathias there and then (which would NOT have caused him to kill her, he'd have simply dropped the garrotting tool) he just sat down when Mathias told him to and then minutes later in one of the most predictable scenes in film I've ever seen we have Mathias fall through the ice. Dragging a film out does not make it interesting and nor does making a never ending list of characters suspects make it interesting. I feel bad for Fassbender as bad films can sometimes ruin careers with films like this and Fassbender hasn't hit his peak yet and it wasn't even a bad performance on his part, just a poor story overall. 4/10 (Also love how everyone in Norway in this film had American accents, I thought actors were supposed to..ya know....act)

Something went very wrong in the production of this film. With the talent involved it should have been way better. It will be interesting to hear what exactly happened, if we'll get a chance.

Knew this was going to be a stinker - no hype whatsoever around release

I disagree, I thoroughly enjoyed the film

A disappointment indeed, failing very badly to make justice to one of the jewels of Scandinavian noir. Fassbender is getting more points each year to be the next generation's Nicholas Cage.

Not a fan of Fassbender. Is it time to admit we overplayed his talents?

I already disliked TTSP, so this movie must be off the charts insufferable

Totally agree, but maybe liked it a bit more than Mark. Still very dissapointing.