Movie: Sucker Punch

[rockmanj]

Like typical Zack Snyder fair, the visuals are arresting, although the action scenes felt like I was watching a video game. There is a very disturbing subtext going on in this film that it seemed a lot of people did not catch. I saw it for free, so I can't really complain (although I was totally a 5th wheel).

[Penner]

I watched the trailer a while ago and it was a wee bit confusing... it looked like she/they were trying to escape from some place but then there were all kinds of weird shit going on like they were all tripping balls on some drug and at the same time trying to escape, or it's all in their imagination or some such..

Guess i'll make more sense of it once i see the movie, lol

[Munsu]

I'm looking forward to this one.

[darkshadow]

Saw this today......pretty damn badass...
Further impressions will follow.

edit:

Just saw Sucker Punch IMAX

This movie was one hell of a thrillride....babes, guns, explosions, mechs, robots, nazis, zombies, dragons, music...all that combined with anime action physics, some great (stupendously fucking awesome) cinematography and captivatingly impressive visuals and you've got the recipe for perhaps the greatest action movie ever?
This movie had literally everything..even the plot was pretty good, but it gets vastly overshadowed by everything else and the fact that the story may come across as somewhat weird.

The plot basically revolves around this girl who gets the monniker "babydoll". She gets locked up in a mental institution and to escape from reality she starts imagining these worlds in order to come up with a plan to get her freedom back....sounds silly but I left out a bunch in order to avoid spoilers, regardless, these worlds revolve around her getting 5 items and each of these items means she imagines another world PACKED with crazy stuff, which ofcourse results in some great action moments.

I also loved how the action is pretty continuous throughout the movie, instead of one big scene that lasts for a short while; 90% of this movie is action.
The music, or I should just say the the overall audio was really great. I already mentioned how I loved the visuals and cinematography which really hit their high point with the train imagination world
There is this one scene in this world (which pretty much lasts the entire world....) that just blew my mind and became a very strong contender for being -the- sickest shit I have ever seen....ever.

The acting was good, or I guess it was a mix between so-so performances and great performances. Overall nothing really bothered me about the acting.

This movie was just fucking boss and I'm definitly getting it on blu-ray.
Highly recommended, go watch this in IMAX! ;D

[rockmanj]

I did enjoy the soundtrack as well...although IMO, I would not say its the greatest action movie of all time. I did enjoy the action sequences a lot, though.

[Penner]

lol, so my impression from the trailer that the girl was imagining/making shit up while trying to escape from some institution/prison was pretty accurate then :P

[darkshadow]

Somewhat....as mentioned I left shit out to avoid spoilers..

[Munsu]

This post will contain spoilers. So if you haven't watched it don't read further in my post.





Just watched the movie, and got mixed reactions to it. I didn't care much for the first half, but I thought the 2nd half was really good. I think this is a movie that is better after you're done and try to analyze what the heck went on.

So what do you guys think happened overall? I thought that Baby Doll created Sweet Pea in her mind, and Sweet Pea was her escape. Though I do think in a parallel, Baby Doll also helped the real Sweet Pea escape. I don 't know, something along those lines. Haven't had much time to think on the movie.







.

[Sapphire]

I watched this recently and I liked it. The random world transition at the beginning confused the crap out of me, but I got used to it. Unsurprisingly, Jon Hamm was massively sexy in this. I love stylized movies. After watching this, I watched Kill Bill, which is also super stylized. Both are obviously influenced by anime and Japanese culture.

Tarentino's movie has a more "polished" feel to it, though. Synder seemed to go for a more sloppy haphazard and stimulating execution, whereas Tarantino put more effort into making his movie "flow" seamlessly in terms of aesthetics and cinematography. So I got more of a Crouching Tiger sense from Tarentino's movie, and a more... Transformers (or insert extremely explosiony movie here) sense from the Synder movie.

[Munsu]

Do you have any theories on what actually occurred during the movie?

[Buffalobiian]

Do you have any theories on what actually occurred during the movie?

She went into the facility, noted down things that could be useful for her escape on her way in, did some crazy stuff that relates to those items (though in her own head she fantasised a whole lot about what happened), helped a girl escape and got her head nailed.

[Sapphire]

I thought it was parallel universes at first. But the psychotic girl at the end clearly fantasizes about Sweet Pea, making her aware of the stripper world.

The movie itself suggests that the real world is a psych ward, and the rest are dreams.

Whenever the blonde chick dances, she's instantly transported into another world. We never see the dance. The mental girl probably didn't have the facilities to be able to visually experience and see this dance that is SO good that it could mesmerize everyone who watches, so her mind automatically created some crazy metaphor for the dance by creating another world. Dreams can do that.

You can easily explain the other worlds as fantasies of the psychotic girl. There is no indication that the stripper world is connected to the asylum world in any way shape or form. The stripper world is simply unaware of the asylum world. The Zombie/Monster world only happens when the main character is dancing in the stripper world.

Psychotic world = real world
Stripper world = fantasy of psychotic girl
Zombie world = coping mechanism because she can't think of a dance, so her mind automatically blips it out and replaces it with another fantasy

[Munsu]

Got to remember that when she first arrives at the facility, they explain how the Russian was giving coping mechanisms something called Paradise or whatever.

When she's going to get nailed, we kinda see her going into this Paradise scenario and we see Sweet Pea wearing a wig as if she was playing Baby Doll in some sort of theater performance.

Every time she "danced" she was actually getting raped or abused, so she went into those "worlds" as some sort of Paradise scenario coping mechanism.

So in all, I think she actually helped some girl escape in the real world by doing the things we saw in this Paradise scenario (which was kinda retroactive explanation of how she helped the girl escape, and that girl was Sweet Pea)... now, when she goes to get nailed, since she already helped Sweet Pea escape then she kinda becomes her in her head and makes her self free. At the end we see the abusing dude telling her to come back from Paradise or whatever, and after we zoom into her eyes we get a shot of Sweet Pea escaping in a bus with the old dude that was their mentor. So Baby Doll, which is currently Sweet Pea for our intents and purposes, has escaped into her paradise scenario in her lobotomy state.

That's what I gathered overall.

And remember, that Sweet Pea loses her sister in the stripper world, which kinda parallels Baby Doll's loss too.

Does that make any sense?

[darkshadow]

You guys are looking into it too much, Buff was dead on; Sweet Pea was very real and baby doll helped her escape. Now wether Rocket was actually Sweet Pea's sister is open for debate.

[Munsu]

You guys are looking into it too much, Buff was dead on; Sweet Pea was very real and baby doll helped her escape. Now wether Rocket was actually Sweet Pea's sister is open for debate.

No, I think you're over simplifying it. No one said that there wasn't a very real Sweet Pea, but the one which we saw throughout the movie was certainly not the real one, in the stripper sequences.

Else, I fear you kinda missed a good chunk of what happened in the movie and what it was about. I don't know exactly what's what and actually occurred, but if you don't entertain the scenario of the Paradise coping system that was explained when Baby Doll got to facility, then you're missing out.

[darkshadow]

Everyone in her fantasy is derived from someone in the psych ward, she didn't make up any of them. Fantasy sweat pea escaped = real sweat pea escaped. This really isn't a very deep movie guys ;[.

[Munsu]

Everyone in her fantasy is derived from someone in the psych ward, she didn't make up any of them. Fantasy sweat pea escaped = real sweat pea escaped. This really isn't a very deep movie guys ;[.

Am I contradicting that in any way? I think not.

All I'm saying is that while in the real world she helped Sweet Pea escape, what we went through wasn't happening in real time for example. Sweet Pea had already escaped, we were simply in Baby Doll's head. And when in her head, Sweet Pea escaped, it was kinda like herself escaping. So when we see her lobotomized, she might be Sweet Pea in her mind; free.

[darkshadow]

I don't think so, I think the real world events were pretty synonymous, just less glorious. The last item was basically baby doll's sacrifice, so I'm guessing in the end only one of them had the chance to escape and baby doll let herself get caught. Then she gets lobotomized and sees fantasy sweet pea on her way to paradise and is happy. I guess you could say her happiness and "redemption" is her freedom.

[Munsu]

Anyways, regardless of what actually happened or not, what we experienced throughout the movie, the stripper theater things, it was clearly us inside of Baby Dolls head using the coping mechanism that she was taught by the Russian. When the guy was going to rape her one last time, he mentions something along the lines of "I know you're still there, you're not in Paradise" or whatever, but throughout all that Baby Doll is pretty much dead to the world, but since her minds is in paradise that's pretty much her freedom to whatever suffering might be going on in the real world.

I mean, Baby Doll wasn't a virgin for one and I very much doubt that the other chicks also died in the real world (I would have thought some mention of that would have happened when they were explaining Baby Dolls' exploits).

But whatever, I just think that if we look at it your way, we kinda miss half of what actually went on.

[Assertn]

The burlesque world was a facade for the real world, the real world being the psyche ward. The action scenes were facades to the burlesque world, and represented babydoll dancing for the key targets while the other girls snuck around stealing the stuff they needed. What did the dancing represent in the real world? I dunno, probably her getting raped...