Sucker Punch Review: You Won’t Get This From A Book
March 27, 2011 by Bilal Mian
Filed under feature overlay, Movies
Going into Sucker Punch I really didn’t know what to expect. Visually the movie looked amazing and the action badass, but somewhere deep in the back of my mind I felt that the story would be flat out terrible. I’m glad to say the story wasn’t as bad as I imagined, but it wasn’t all that amazing either.
This will be a movie the critics will bash because it contains no artistic value (in their opinion), no deep meaning, and situations that are so ludicrous that they’ll feel insulted. Sucker Punch is no The King’s Speech, but it definitely isn’t something you can experience elsewhere.
What’s The Story?
Sucker Punch opens to the death of Babydoll’s (Emily Browning) mother. Her stepfather snaps upon learning that his late wife left all of her possessions to her daughters. Enraged, the gold digger of a husband murders Babydoll’s younger sister. Holding a gun to her stepfather’s head, Babydoll tosses it aside and makes a run for it. The police soon find her, but it is too late. Her stepfather has framed her for murder. To make sure she doesn’t talk, he has Babydoll institutionalized. Inside of the asylum, Babydoll retreats into an alternate reality of a brothel where she must plan her escape with the help of the other girls before she is sold to the high-roller in five days.
How’s The Action?
The action is Sucker Punch contains the most stylish and creative sequences I’ve seen from any other movie in theaters. Lets be real for a second. The movie was purposely made for these action scenes and the story was second thought. There is no way you are going to have an audience take a movie seriously when a girl retreats into an alternate world that involves fighting samurais, steampunk nazi zombies, dragons, and robots with a katana and handgun.
The action sequences are fast, insane, highly creative, and simply epic. They feel like Quick-Time-Events out of a videogame like God of War, but without the button pressing of course. Director Zack Snyder‘s vision of how these sequences play out amazes me. You can read a description of these scenes all you want but nothing your mind imagines will match the intensity on screen.
What I Liked
The action was a blast to watch unfold as I previously stated. The creative nature of the enemies, fights, weapons, and setting really shine.
- Something unexpected was the music of Sucker Punch. The movie’s soundtrack really stood out enough for me to take a notice and that rarely happens (the last time being 500 Days of Summer).
- After the opening narration, the scene of Baby Doll’s mother dying up till the arrival to the asylum plays out to a rendition of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) without a single line of dialogue being spoken. There was a quiet madness to that scene that I really enjoyed.
- Women kicking ass. You’ve got a bunch of girls in a terrible situation and yea, wearing skimpy outfits isn’t he most ideal way to represent them, but they make the best of what they got. They have the weapons in their own hands and they put their lives on the line to do what it takes to survive. Many will say they are misrepresented, but I disagree. If a woman in a tough spot makes the best of her situation, that is empowerment. Whether she succeeds or fails, it is a noble effort.
What I Didn’t Like
- The story for Sucker Punch was predictable. Even the twists were pretty spottable. While the story wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t great either. The major reason for this falls on the characters.
- The characters of Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, Rocket, Amber, and Blondie come off as archetypes. There is very little personality or development within any of the characters. There was no reason to get attached to any or really care about them.
- A movie inside a movie inside of a movie. What is this, Inception? Asylum, Brothel, Fantasy World. One too many levels of reality for my liking. Asylum pretty much seemed unnecessary in all honesty.
- The story got a bit dull at times causing me to drift off during scenes that didn’t involve swords or guns.
- Jon Hamm… This is nitpicking but I just find it hilarious when he is not Donald Draper. Anytime I see him in anything other than Mad Men I have to ask “What’s he doing off of Madison Ave?”
Final Grade
Sucker Punch is not a movie you watch for its story or the message it’s trying to put out. People go to see Sucker Punch for one reason, the action. Some of you will find this movie to be an absolute blast. Others, like myself, will find it interesting to say the least. If you went to see Sucker Punch after seeing the trailer or a commercial and felt like it insulted your intelligence, then you really need to take a step back and reevaluate what you thought you were going to get out of this movie.
Sucker Punch is an imaginative action packed visual adrenaline ride. You won’t get an experience like this reading a book no matter how vast your imagination. Check your brain at the door and you’ll have a decent time.
Final Grade: B-
This movie, whilst seeming like an action packed/fantasy film, is mainly set in a brothel. The trailer for the film however, does not advertise this particular aspect nor does it show what the movie is really about. The film, despite its fantastic visual effects, has little story line and a disturbing plot. if you just spent over an hour watching this film then you just got SUCKER PUNCHED!
I have to say that this was the worst movie I have everseen. The story line was really twisted and sick. The whole film just stole creatures and strylines from other films like I Robot, Lord of the rings, district nine, under seige 2 and many more. The film just really sucked and was not worth the money at all a total waste of my life I will not get back.
I really tried to like this movie. I did. The action scenes are epic, beautiful, ridiculous entertaining without being ludicrous; & they’re the ENTIRE REASON this movie was made.
It is not enough.
The characters in Sucker Punch are little more than clichés; the frustrated fantasies of every acne-faced Anime uber-fanboy & CosPlay-fetishist who still lives with mom, who wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to interact with an actual live human female.
The girls in this movie are rather generic, interchangeable objects of deepseated shame-lust, inspiring virtually no emotional investment in the viewer (beyond that basest interest). Sure they’re sexy, that’s their purpose, but does anyone really care when they appear to be killed off one by one (& with a plot this convoluted, who the hell can say if they’re actually killed, or even if they ever lived in the first place)?
Which brings us to the one irredeemable failure of Sucker Punch: its story.
I wish I could report that the director is able to pull off the whole world-within-a-world dynamic, as a kind of kick-ass hyper-sexual Alice in Wonderland meets Inception, but that vehicle falls apart before it even gets moving. The transitions from one level-reality to the next are at first confusing & then inexplicable, & in the end we’re left to wonder if they served any real purpose at all.
In her dream within a dream, our pigtailed protagonist, Baby Doll, is informed by a seemingly bored Samurai Sensei John Glenn, of the five objectives of her deepest-level fantasy quests, which are required for her & her four femme fatal cohorts to escape the battlefield/bordello/insane asylum/whatever.
Why they need a map, fire, a knife, a key, & some mystery artifact, & how they indeed implement these in their (sort of) escape, is only sloppily inferred at the very end, making the entire adventure through multidimensional fantasy-land seem almost superfluous. Beyond the studio’s cynical & barely-justified excuse to portray 5 skimpily dressed hotties sexily kicking the various magnificently rendered asses of giant Samurai demons, Nazi zombies, airplane-eating dragons, & armies of evil Irobots, there is little point to Sucker Punch. Or rather, the point of Sucker Punch IS said scantily clad hotties kicking ass & separating male viewers from their $13.50 for the enhanced Imax Viewing.
& the ending certainly lives up to the name. I sure felt suckered into shelling out $27 for me & my girlfriend to sit through 100 minutes of this Hentai inspired insipidry. I won’t spoil it for those solely interested in Sucker Punch’s unmatched levels of hottie-kickassery, but suffice it to say, a more thoroughly unsatisfying ending would be hard to imagine. When the credits pop up unexpectedly you’ll feel thwarted & ripped off.
I’m a writer, so perhaps I’m significantly more sensitive to bad story-telling than others. I figured I’d enjoy Sucker Punch with all its glorious T&A more than my beautiful, insightful girlfriend, but she is pointing out that it’d be fairer to grade the movie on its more appealing aspects.
So for a broader picture, I’ll give Sucker Punch a letter grade as follows:
Action: A+. Never unbelievable enough to take you out of the experience, almost every second of action is exhilarating. Completely over-the-top in just the right ways, Sucker Punch’s combat is some of the best I’ve seen. As viscerally satisfying as a big-budget silverscreen version of the God of War video game franchise complete with boss battles. It’s really hard to come up with truly never-before-seen digital wonders, but the vast astonishments Sucker Punch parades before our eyes seem fresh & are consistently rousing. You can tell the actresses have had expert training in the many weapons they wield. Assault Rifle handling seems especially authentic.
Cinematography/Setting: A+. Absolutely stunning. From Medieval Japan to Fantasy Orc Stronghold to Futuristic Rocket Train, each environment has its own uniquely sinister beauty. Even after all the overblown CGI blockbusters, Sucker Punch manages to bring a new life & feel to each of its scenescapes. Many worlds unto themselves, & no mistake.
Music/Sound FX: A. As others have mentioned, Sucker Punch has an excellent & memorable soundtrack. & if you love to be immersed in huge action exploding all around you in the theater, the sound mixing for this movies is superb. Seeing it at home in stereo will not at all be the same.
Characters: C-. The actresses seem to view their performances in Sucker Punch as a contest to see who can play the sexiest, most emotionally damaged female assassin. Or perhaps they see it as film credits for future casting auditions for mascara commercials. I swear there are rivers of the stuff. The characters are utterly one-dimensional, but this is hardly a surprise as almost all the screen time for character development is taken up instead by the ridiculous plot & superbly choreographed combat sequences.
Plot/Story: D. So convoluted as to be nigh on meaningless, Sucker Punch leaves huge ambiguity in the viewers mind as to what is real & what is dream & what is merely stylistic eye-candy. Hardly anything connects more than tangentially, & the continuum completely collapses under concerted contemplation. Bad movie! Bad!
The Ending: F. Is F- a real grade?
As any author will tell you, a great ending will save an otherwise mediocre story. A terrible ending will utterly destroy an otherwise good story. But what do you get when a fairly dreadful story gets an abrupt & immensely unsatisfying ending that makes no sense & absolutely obliterates the very reason you sat through the story in the first place? You get Sucker Punched.
The ending is so horrendous that I’d almost advise you to get up & leave after about 90 minutes into the movie. For wouldn’t it be better to imagine on your own, any number of reasonable explanations that could tie together such potentially compelling narratives, rather than suffer through a writer’s self-sabotaging abomination that is so insulting to your intelligence, it lays waste any desire you may feel to reconcile the until-now fascinating inconsistencies?
Whether through laziness, sheer incompetence, or utter contempt for his audience, the writer’s ending to Sucker Punch is so terrible it’s as if he’s metaphorically slapping you in the face with one hand & flipping you the bird with the other, before turning dismissively to get in his Limousine & peeling off down the road, while you’re standing there on the sidewalk in stunned disbelief, thinking ‘what the £¥{% just happened?’
Who knows. The movie’s over. There are no refunds.
Maybe that’s a little strong but you get my point. The ending is so paradoxically awful (just wait till you see it) that it brings an otherwise decent action flick from a solid C, all the down to a D-. That’s what an atrocious ending can do. Trust me.
Final Grade: D-
See it in an Imax theater for the incredible Cinema experience & thundering sound effects, but leave right when it looks like everything is about to make sense. It won’t. There is no epiphany, no brilliant burst of understanding, no clever explanation worthy of the title. In fact, quite the opposite. So make up your own. Anything you can come up with in your head will be better than what comes out on the screen.
Bad disappointing movie. Bad!
I mostly agree. The movie was kind of hard to follow, but if you accepted the brothel as “reality” and the dreams as dreams that are corresponding to “reality” which is corresponding to her reality in the asylum than it makes a litle bit more sence. again, the story was not a good reason to see this movie. i feel that a movie can excell without a “good story” and this movie did it. just because you didnt cry when the main charcters were killed, or because you didnt feel an inner victory when the main characters won, doesnt mean it wasnt still entertaining. most critics have this wrong, and should learn to, as you said, “check their brains at the door” and enjoy a good movie.
The movie didn’t need to have “meaning”, just a solid story. It didn’t. It felt disjointed and stilted in the best of moments and downright awkward otherwise. The action sequences were beautiful and well done, but it takes more than art and explosions to make a “good movie” and this one just didn’t have it… it was not even close.
FINALLY, a proper review for this movie. all the critics giving this movie those god awful scores don’t seem to understand that this movie isn’t about the story, it’s about the action and snyder’s incredible cinematography in some fucking bad ass settings. i feel the plot should have been somewhat rethought but i still found the story interesting, which is pretty impresive considering how awfully shallow the characters were.