Snowpiercer

What a wild ride Snowpiercer was. Every time I thought it was cooling down I would get hit with another mind blowing reveal that changed my perception on the characters. Bong Joon Ho did some great world building which helps you attach yourself to the movie in such a way that makes each reveal even more gut punching. Pros:-The world that these characters inhabit is built up to extraordinarily well. They leave some things up for interpretation but the purpose of the train, how it functions, and how people inhabit it are explored to a large degree. The beginning does a great job of establishing the basics of the world but then they continue to build on it throughout the rest of the movie. It explores how the people are punished, the history of the train, and how the divide between the upper and lower class is very large just like in the real world. -The characters are very interesting people. You get to see how this dystopian world has impacted them in extreme ways. Some have had to deal with the loss of a kid while people like the protagonist Curtiss have had to deal with so much worse which was one of the crazy reveals at the end.-The visual effects in the movie are really nice. The outside world that is frozen over looks like you took a picture of Antarctica and maybe put a few buildings on it. The scene where you see one of the large cities and the shipyards near it all frozen over is one of the most visually stunning scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie, and is also an amazing display of visual effects. -The set design of the train works really well even if it’s only small corridors. It’s made so each room looks distinct even with the constraint of space while keeping the general style of a train. It acts almost like a hotel in how it gets better and more luxurious the more further you go.-Costume design in this movie is something that I overlooked but after thinking about it I realized how good it was. The amount of detail put into making the people in the back of the trains clothes looking worn down, while the people in the front have nice clothes that is more akin to the clothes we have today. The class difference is set up very well through the clothing and really helps develop sympathy for the characters when you see how awful their situation is just through what they wear.-I had to save the best part for last and that is the story. The basic premise is simple enough and sounds like it would make a pretty good movie on paper but there is so much more to it. There are crazy plot revelations and twists every 25 minutes and it is incredibly engaging. But none of these twists are half assed either they all are really fleshed out and effect both the characters and you. The characters also compliment the story very well, they are all a complex piece of a puzzle rather than just being simple archetypes of people. The world has truly shaped everyone in the movie in ways that are so horrifying and Bong Joon Ho really shows that. He also leaves things in mystery so you don’t know everything that happened to the world and the way it ends leaves hope that things will get better. There is heavy symbolism in the movie and it is really interesting when you think about it. Overall the story was incredible and engaging from beginning to end that is truly memorable. This is the first of Bong Joon Ho’s movies that I’ve seen and I’m longing to see more. It changed my perception on the characters in so many different ways and set up an incredibly fleshed out world for them to inhabit. It kept my interest the entire time with no parts I would consider a slog. Snowpiercer has definitely found a place in my favorite movies and is not something I will be forgetting for a very long time.