Movie #162 Sucker Punch *2011*

NAZI-ROBOT-ZOMBIES!!!

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.

Movie #52 T2

I haven't even made mention that I have eclipsed the half a century mark on my reviews.  52 movies in 96 days watched and reviewed.  I received High Noon in the mail today via Netflix.  I am looking forward to catching up with a western I have heard about most of my life.  I became even more excited when I realized that it was directed by the same man that directed Day of the Jackal.

But alas that is not the film that I am reviewing now.  I couldn't quite talk my kids into watching another western with gold ole dad.  So instead I got them hook on this tiny little 1991 merchant ivory picture called T2: Judgment Day.  How did I get them interested?  I told them it was by the same guy that directed Avatar.  See, that movie is good for something.

This film still plays.  Yes, the special effect aren't so special anymore.  But this was made in a time when James Cameron did rely entirely on CGI to tell an interesting story.  I can remember at the time watching T2 and being blown away.  Watching it now with a few thousand more films under my belt I was blown away for totally different reasons.

First off if you haven't seen T2 here is my brief synopsis:  A man sends a robot back from the future to protect his younger self from a different time traveling robot.  This man (John Connor) is the lead in a rebellion against the robots which have taken over the world.  In order to defeat the evil robot the boy and the terminator must free the kids mother from a mental institution so she may assist in the butt kicking. 

I am not going to comment on the acting other than to say that Edward Furlong as the young John Connor was solid and I would be amiss if I didn't mention the thespian talents of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The action takes center stage here and it is a big freaking stage!  This film is known for about a dozen particular action sequences.  There is the semi-truck vs dirt bike vs overpass, there is the liquid nitrogen, there is the Skynet lab destruction, ect.

Watching it this time I noticed a lot of similarities between this film and the Star Wars trilogy.  The original trilogy.  I am sure there are a few shots that are staged as almost perfect comparisons.  Surely I can't be the only geek that noticed T2 and Empire had the same shots and themes?  I am going to Google the crap out of this after this blog.  If I find anything I will attack links or photos.

This movie really does have it all.  Cool CGI, great action, solid story (for a time traveling movie anyway) cool catch phrases, guns, nuclear apocalypse, you name it.  It does have a little harsher language that what might have been approiate for my tween daughters, but I am sure it is nothing that they haven't heard out on the play ground or in the locker rooms.  Blockbuster geeks complain that artsy critics can't enjoy a fun moive.  I think T2 proves them wrong.  This is a fun movie that is smart and well constructed.  Us artsy/fartsy types wish all summer blockbuster were made with this type of gusto.  I give T2 4/5 stars.

Checkout The Trailer Park to see for yourself.