Movie Reviews 2.0

[nightshade]

About sucker punch:

Spoiler

Its obvious that the high class brothel is actually Sweet Pea's world while the fantasy world (with totally random sequence) is Baby Doll's world while the asylum is the reality. What happens to be the high roller in Sweet Pea's world is actually the Doctor who is coming to lobotomize Baby Doll in 5 days.

 

[MfA]

Spoiler

If there is an objective reality and it is the asylum then what happened is that the protagonist essentially died and only a figment of her imagination is still acting out in her dreams while she sits there drooling ... and everything else was meaningless. If it was Sweet Peas dreams everything else was meaingless. If there were multiple overlapping realities and the protoganist could somehow travel between them to save Sweet Pea, well great that is a story worth telling! If they had let Baby Doll meet the wise man inside the asylum to tell her what to do in her dreams, then you could have wondered "Did she hallucinate that? Or was there someone who straddled multiple worlds who provided her with an opportunity to save a life?" ... instantly a better movie.

 

[Mariner]

I've not seen Sucker Punch, but as it's a Zack Snyder film, I'm guessing that it is glossy, flashy and ultimately a bit shit.

 

[Cornsnake]

I had a bad feeling about this movie, so I just spoiled the story for myself with reviews ... glad I did, I would not have found the story acceptable. Not going to bother with it.

Spoiler

Basically the only reasonable conclusion, mad girl fantasizes and gets lobotomised ... with some dialogue/commentary pretending there is some actual importance to the lol randum stuff happening but which you can ultimately not take seriously, and thus depriving it of any impact ... no spill over between fantasy and reality like in say Paprika, the Matrix or Videodrome to show there is some importance to the fantasy. At best everything was a dream ... and we all know how good a story that is.

Spoiler

Anyone who thinks the fantasy stuff is unrelated to the real world has missed the point entirely. How so many people managed to fail to see something that obvious is beyond me.

 

[Babel-17]

Huh, all these spoilers have piqued my interest, was the film really going for something deep, that is the question. I might have to see this.

This youtube clip came mind. :smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djh1UprzoLk

I was going to see "Your Highness" but that film has the critics weeping bitter tears.

 

[Simon F]

I just recently saw

• "The King's Speech"
• "True Grit" and
• "Deathly Hallows Pt 1"

and enjoyed them all (though I wish they had been on a screen bigger than what will fit in the back of a seat!).

The King's Speech was particularly moving.

 

[Cornsnake]

Huh, all these spoilers have piqued my interest, was the film really going for something deep, that is the question. I might have to see this.

This youtube clip came mind. :smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djh1UprzoLk

I was going to see "Your Highness" but that film has the critics weeping bitter tears.

I can't see that youtube link because it's blocked for my country.

Sucker Punch is going for something deep, but I wouldn't call it that deep either. It's no Inception or The Matrix. It seems what it was going for is just easily missed.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Spoiler

If they had let Baby Doll meet the wise man inside the asylum to tell her what to do in her dreams, then you could have wondered "Did she hallucinate that?

I think that was the element that was missing for me - I would have liked to have seen the wise man visit the asylum at some point and that would have linked in with the end better.

 

[Cornsnake]

Spoiler

I think that was the element that was missing for me - I would have liked to have seen the wise man visit the asylum at some point and that would have linked in with the end better.

Spoiler

The wise man was her guardian angel. He doesn't actually exist.

 

[RobertR1]

Splice. 6/10. A cool take on such a genre. Amazingly shit acting by Adrien Brody though. It's like he was sabotaging the movie.

 

[Babel-17]

I can't see that youtube link because it's blocked for my country.

Sucker Punch is going for something deep, but I wouldn't call it that deep either. It's no Inception or The Matrix. It seems what it was going for is just easily missed.

The youtube link was to a short clip from the David Lynch movie, Inland Empire. The clip was of some girls dancing to "Do the Locomotion" as a very confused Laura Dern watches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Empire_(film)

 

[MfA]

Spoiler

The wise man was her guardian angel. He doesn't actually exist.

Spoiler

Yes ... and that's the whole problem. Everything being a delusion she just acted out so she could tell herself her death was not for nothing is not a satisfying story. The creation of a figment of her imagination to inhabite the dreams of the drooling body which stays behind not a satisfying ending.

If there were multiple realities it would have been a story worth telling. If her dreams were some elaborate self created exercise to deal with her inner demons and inhibitions to prepare her for her eventual escape, that would have been a story worth telling.

Her dreams being nothing more than a time filler ... that's like ending the Matrix with a shot of Neo still in his pod and you realising it was all just another simulation.

 

[Cornsnake]

The youtube link was to a short clip from the David Lynch movie, Inland Empire. The clip was of some girls dancing to "Do the Locomotion" as a very confused Laura Dern watches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Empire_(film)

I haven't seen Inland Empire, but I don't think Sucker Punch is that deep. It does use a lot of metaphors to tell it's story though.

Spoiler

Yes ... and that's the whole problem. Everything being a delusion she just acted out so she could tell herself her death was not for nothing is not a satisfying story. The creation of a figment of her imagination to inhabite the dreams of the drooling body which stays behind not a satisfying ending.

If there were multiple realities it would have been a story worth telling. If her dreams were some elaborate self created exercise to deal with her inner demons and inhibitions to prepare her for her eventual escape, that would have been a story worth telling.

Her dreams being nothing more than a time filler ... that's like ending the Matrix with a shot of Neo still in his pod and you realising it was all just another simulation.

Spoiler

It wasn't all a delusion. Everything that happens in the brothel happens in the real world, it's just seen through a colourful filter. The items she tried gather existed in the real world, Blue was stabbed by Baby Doll in the real world, and Sweat Pea escaped.

 

[London Geezer]

Lb,
what do you think of the al fayed michael jackson statue ?
I thought you would appreciate a large erection outside the home of the cottagers

pardon? ok start from the beginning... cottagers?!

 

[Davros]

al fayed has put a massive michael jackson statue outside fulham football club Craven Cottage
hence the fulham are known as the cottagers

 

[homerdog]

Splice. 6/10. A cool take on such a genre. Amazingly shit acting by Adrien Brody though. It's like he was sabotaging the movie.

That's weird, he's usually great. Which reminds me I watched The Brothers Bloom again the other night. Love that movie.

 

[NRP]

Spoiler

I think that was the element that was missing for me - I would have liked to have seen the wise man visit the asylum at some point and that would have linked in with the end better.

Spoiler

Agreed. I didn't see those things he told her in the very beginning ever happening. What exactly was her "perfect victory"?

As MfA said, it wasn't a very satisfying story.

 

[MfA]

Spoiler

It wasn't all a delusion. Everything that happens in the brothel happens in the real world, it's just seen through a colourful filter. The items she tried gather existed in the real world, Blue was stabbed by Baby Doll in the real world, and Sweat Pea escaped.

Spoiler

That still doesn't make the story satisfying ... so a girl gets out of an asylum, woopdedoo ... they weren't all headed for the ice pick, so how is that some heroic achievment? Or if the brothel was real, one girl gets out, all the item gathering was just thievery which got all the other girls killed, so how is that some heroic achievement? It doesn't matter what you pick as the reality, all the actions were largely meaningless in the end.

 

[Cornsnake]

Spoiler

That still doesn't make the story satisfying ... so a girl gets out of an asylum, woopdedoo ... they weren't all headed for the ice pick, so how is that some heroic achievment? Or if the brothel was real, one girl gets out, all the item gathering was just thievery which got all the other girls killed, so how is that some heroic achievement? It doesn't matter what you pick as the reality, all the actions were largely meaningless in the end.

Spoiler

The victory is all in the mind. Not sitting by and letting a bad situation get the better of you. Even though most of it still ended badly, they did every thing they could to try make it better, they can at least take comfort in that. And for Baby Doll it's about redemption. Having failed to save her sister, she now succeeds in saving Sweet pea.

Most stories will take the moral way out, where all the bad guy are punished for what they did, and the good guys win. Sucker Punch doesn't, it takes a more realistic approach. Regardless of whatever bad thing happen to you, that are beyond your control, you just have to make the best of it. That message is a bit cruel, but still very true IMO

 

[MfA]

Spoiler

Better? For all we know Sweet Pea could have been in there for very good reasons. It's not about morals, it's about plot and impact ... we are left with the impression that nothing which happened in the movie was very important to the actual escape. Random stuff happened, in the end someone escaped ... or not, it's rather ambiguous.

If we do assume all the girls were really inmates they could just as easily have knitted sweaters for most of the movie and achieved the same outcome. It makes the whole exercise kind of embarrassing, a bunch of kids putting together some grand scheme but really just filling time. It's like watching the goonies with a bad end. It was branded as having empowered female roles, for that it needs main characters who have some real control over what happens, not girls who are just along for a ride.