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| This scene is in Sucker Punch!!!!!! |
My bf and I saw Sucker Punch last night, in glorified Imax. This will mark the 3rd movie of Zack Snyder's I have seen in Imax (Watchman and 300 being the others). I know a lot of people didn't like Watchman, but I loved it. Stayed true to the comic; the only disappointing seen to me was the really bad music chosen during the sex scene. That just made me facepalm. 300 was a violent dream come true. It's very ungirly to admit, but I love me some good violent action. I'm not into extremely unnecessary torture scenes (Saw), or serious realistic violence, but kick butt action with a little gore brings out the side of me that would normally be seen in a sports event.Sucker Punch was action eye-candy; brilliant choreography, homage to video games I recognized. But it surprisingly had no gore. I was actually surprised that no gore really made an appearance; there was one scene with blood in it, and it wasn't explicit. It definitely added to the realization that Sucker Punch was about dream worlds, where the monsters, demons and cyborgs bled no blood, but hissed and sizzled as they collapsed.
The story is of a young woman, who escapes the realities of her situation by creating dream worlds where she fights monsters, machines, and ethereal beings to replicate the situations she's facing in real life. Or wait. Scratch that. It's replicating her dancing in front of a "client" because the action dream worlds are an escape from another dream world where she's a show girl/prostitute. In reality, she's in a mental institute after accidentally killing her sister while trying to fight off her abusive stepfather.
So to recap, because even I had to rethink this.
She is in a mental institute, where she dreams that she is a prostitute who dreams of being a samurai sword wielding Japanese school girl wannabe fighting off the evils of the world.
Patient -> Prostitute -> Sailor Moon
Ok. Got it? Good.
Spoilers
Baby Doll, as the girl is called, is faced with a lobotomy in 5 days. While doing...well...I don't know what she was doing in real life. The majority of the show featured her in her world as a prostitute. So while she was dancing since she's a show girl/prostitute, she would escape into this world where a old man gives her a samurai sword and a cool pistol, and tells her how to get out; find these five things (map, fire, knife, key, and something about herself and sacrifice) and she will be free. She enlists the help of four other girls in the institute, Rocket (Gena Melone...no idea who she is), Sweet Pea (Ryan Philipe/Reese Witherspoon's homewrecker), Blondie (Gabrielle from High School Musical) and Amber (Chichi from Dragonball movie). Together they fight through war like zones, trying to reach a goal, usually ending up with the item in prostitute world. These worlds are triggered by Baby Doll dancing, which mesmerizes their adversaries as the other girls sneak around to get the items. That's what's going on in prostitute world. I don't know what's going on in the mental institute.
So the worlds and the fights to obtain their objectives are the highlight of the movie. The first scene was a war zone during WWII. A couple of Killzone dudes made an appearance. Vanessa Hudgens was wielding an axe. Cool.
The second world was right out of Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, except with fire. You know why? Because Deathwing was chilling in the tower. Duh! The orcs looked exactly like the ones from LotR and the dragon had that long dropped, triangular jaw I associate with Deathwing. It was still pretty cool. The highlight was the sword fight choreography from Baby Doll.
The last world was a scene out of the opening from FFXIII; the train sequence in which Lightning slashes and shoots her way through cyber suited soldiers. Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, and Rocket fight through androids that remind me of less human looking I Robots.
The ending is very unsatisfactory. It was an odd turn. You would think a story like this would lead to triumph, and while yes, the bad guys get their reckoning in the end, it wasn't without a huge amount of sacrifice.
The ending of 300 was triumphant and hopeful. It taught of ultimate sacrifice in the face of evil.
The ending of Watchman asked the question: is it okay to sacrifice a few people to save the rest? Is fear the right answer?
The ending of Sucker Punch was... maybe if you're in a mental institute it's for a reason?
I can't really tell you how I feel about Sucker Punch. Visually, the movie was stunning. Again, the choreography for the fight scenes was brilliant, and it brought out that geeky action side of me.
But story wise, I feel like I hate it; but I can't tell you why. It wasn't bad acting. It wasn't pacing. It wasn't character development, although you learn very little about the other girls. Although, I liked that they were background characters and stayed that way; there wasn't a sudden need for them to have depth or growth.
Even though the story proved that Zack Snyder has a short attention span, it was still well written.
Maybe I would've liked to see more of the mental institute. The prostitute world as a substitute didn't make it more interesting or less gloomy; it was just damn confusing.
Maybe it was the incredibly dyer ending. No real happiness. Sure someone gets out, but it's not really anyone you want.
Overall, I'd say, see the movie. It's fun. If you like special effects and action sequences, go see it in Imax. 300, Watchmen, and Sucker Punch all have that WOW factor when it comes to high definition.
If your looking for an in depth movie with closure, skip it. You'll just get a less interesting Inception headache.
PS. That reminds me. Going into this movie, and knowing Snyder's history with 300 and Watchmen, I kind of expected to be insulted as a women for the portrayal of five hot women, fighting in cleavage baring attire that clearly wasn't made for fighting.
I would like to happily report I felt none of that because the movie is very very tame. No nudity; some cleavage, yes, but not so overly sexual it becomes unrealistic. Bravo Snyder. Bravo.
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