Emily Browning - Baby Doll
Abbie Cornish - Sweet Pea
Jena Malone - Rocket
Vanessa Hudgens - Blondie
Jamie Chung - Amber
Carla Gugino - Vera Gorski
Zack Snyder (Director)
I feel like I should say right off the bat that this is a defense of the movie Sucker Punch. This film is getting eaten alive by critics. I have read many of the reviews and I disagree with a lot of the readings of this movie. The comments have been pretty harsh. "Collection of near-rape fantasies", "Hands-down the most nightmarishly awful film of the year", and " two hours of humorless, masturbatory non sequiturs".
Right off the bat director Zack Snyder lets you see what you are going to be in for. The movie opens with a series of curtains opening revealing stage after stage. I figured at this point that the films was going to be an "Inception" like film. Dream within a dream kind of stuff. There for everything within is subject to dream logic.
The plot of the film is woven around a girl abused by a step father is placed in a mental institution and by shady means with an orderly, is set to receive a lobotomy. The rest of the film is told through her dreams in which she and the other girls in the ward fight off a series of monsters, robots, Nazis, dragons, and other meanies in an attempt to collect the items needed to escape their confinements. This fights are really dreams within her own dreams (I was right) in which the female patients are dancers at a burlesque / whore house.
That sounds like a lot to process I know. But I didn't really go into the movie looking for any existential examinations or philosophical debates. I wanted to see hot chicks in fishnets with samurai swords fight Nazi-robot-zombies. And who better to give me that then the director of Watchman and 300?
I didn't find this film to be a "girl power" flick because the girls weren't really standing up to their oppressors. They were fighting mythical creatures in their place. This is pure escapism. I don't really like it when people say you should just turn off your brain and enjoy the spectacle. I like to be challenged by a film. I like it to ask questions of me. If nothing else I demand to be entertained by a movie. There was no big challenge in this movie. The narrative structure is deviceive , but not complex. The film did cause me to ask questions. Not deep meaningful questions like a Godard or Felini would, but I was intrigued throughout. And the movie entertained me from opening to ending.
A few other notes:
The soundtrack was great! The electric/metal/rock thing is normaly not my bag, but I dug it here.
The performance were all decent.Emily Browning was given the most to do and she made away with the show. She is so seductive with huge eyes and pouty lips. I am not calling her the next Marylin Monroe, but I understand where those comparisons are coming from.
Carla Gugino has never done anything for me and that streak continued here.
I see a lot of blogs comparing this movie to the video game Call of Duty. I am not a gamer and I have no idea what COD looks like, but I think that is lazy writing trying to get hits from video game enthusists and the #1 selling game in the world right now. Without a doubt the movie has a very video game feel to it, but it is obvious right from the very begining. Lazy.
I got a very twisted "Wizard of Oz" vibe from this movie.
This is a sexy film. Yes, it is a collection of every fanboy fantasies but what is wrong with that?
Anyway, I don't think this movie is going to be anywhere on my radar when it comes to the end of year "Best of Lists", but for the time being it was an enjoyable show. I give Sucker Punch ★★★. Haters gotta hate. Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.
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