Friday, April 1, 2011

Sucker Punch Review

 Introduction: For those of you who are just joining us I must apologize for the length of the review. Their is just so much wrong in this movie. I've been told by several friends that I'm being too harsh and that the movie is entertaining and that I should just enjoy it for what it is. Well pardon my French, but f*ck you. Any idiot can fire fireworks into the air blindly, but an enthusiast who finds pride in his art will create order and meaning to the fireworks. Just look at Scott Pilgrim. That had exposition, this does not.

Sucker Punch: A sucker punch is a boxing term where the boxer distracts his opponent with one hand and strikes with the other. Baby Doll is the distraction, Sweet Pea is the punch. Get it? Got it? Good.

Dr. Gorski/Madam Gorski:  Besides having a horrid Polish accent she is here to give the girls an escape. In the real world asylum, she puts on some music and has the girls go on stage and begin acting in a reality that they control. In the sub-reality brothel, she puts on some music and has the girls begin doing some erotic dancing. Weird thing is, in the brothel she gets mad at Sweet Pea for being in her own world when she dances, but then later tells Blue that she is teaching the girls to have their own fantasies and survive him. Obviously not, Gorski, or were you just making Sweet Pea feel bad for nothing? And at the end of the movie she acts as if Rocket, Blondie, and Amber never existed, but wait, they were shown in the beginning in the asylum. So did she forget about them!? WTF?!?!?

Lobotomist/High Roller: He is the ticking time bomb. The girls have 5 days to escape before he arrives. In reality, he is a lobotomist who lobotomizes Baby Doll, and in the brothel he is a high roller who is going to take away her virginity. And this line is how he is introduced into the story: "We don't have a lobotomist on pay here, but lucky for you he is coming in 5 days." Okay, okay, that might not be the EXACT quote, but my point here is why? We only see him lobotomize Baby Doll, so why was he going there in the first place? To look around?

Blue: In the asylum, he is an orderly who takes bribes and fakes signatures. That just screams evil. In the brothel, he is a mobster in charge of the brothel and he has the cheesiest mustache I've seen. So wait, what if the head attendee showed up? Would he be like a super ultra mega mobster? Oh well, this guy is our villain and when he describes himself he says he (HAHAHAHAHA) feels like a little boy who let's everyone else play with his toys. And he says this after killing Blondie and Amber in front of everyone. Hey!! Idiot!! You just broke 2 of your toys!! For the remainder of the review I shall refer to him as Blueberry.

The Brothel: The brothel is a sub-reality for SWEET PEA. Yupp, in order to escape the harsh reality of cooking, cleaning, and having little plays she created a world where she literally gets f*cked. Brilliant. There is one thing about the brothel that keeps bothering me though: When Baby Doll is dancing to Gorski's music is she giving a performance in the asylum? Wtf? I've heard people say these "dances" are lap dances in the real world based off a henchmen saying "I don't want to do this to these girls anymore" but that doesn't make sense because the film pointed out that the dancing with the music correlates with what Gorski does in the real world. Plus do what to these girls?! How do you know they aren't just beating them up? Blueberry shows more beating that raping SO WTF???

Fantasy Realm: So when Baby Doll dances she enters  a fantasy realm within Sweet Pea's brothel reality. Wait what? Does that mean Baby Doll is in Sweet Pea's reality or is she just an imaginative version of her? If she is actually in Sweet Pea's reality then how did she get there? The same problem is how the hell did Sweet Pea get into Baby Doll's reality? GAH!!! Anyways, Baby Doll does her dance and enters her fantasy reality. She meets the Wise Man and then starts fighting. She, as well as the other girls, magically become Marine level sharpshooters as well as sword fighting masters. Oh, and they are basically invincible too. Would you look at all that tension just fly away... GAWD. F*CKING. DAMMIT. And then what happens when Baby Doll finishes dancing? Everyone applauds as if Jesus just lectured them. You know what that makes me want to see? BABY DOLL'S EROTIC DANCE!!! F*CK YOU!!!

Wise Man: When Baby Doll first meets the Wise Man he asks her what she wants and she responds freedom. He then tells her to get 5 items to reach her freedom. How did he know this? F*ck if I know! The fifth item is for her to be caught and to see the High Roller/Lobotomist... Hey!! Idiot!! If all she needed to do was see the High Roller why didn't you just say "The High Roller will give you freedom!!" So before every fantasy mission he is there to tell the girls what to do and say some meaningless line which the writer put in to justify calling him the Wise Man. When the girls are about to kill a dragon he says "Don't write a check with your mouth that you can't cash with your ass." WHAT...THE...F*CK...DOES THAT...HAVE TO DO...WITH KILLING A DRAGON?!?!? F*CK YOU!!!

Amber: So, I sh*t you not, Amber is here to get two items and pilot stuff. ANYONE ELSE COULD HAVE DONE THIS. And at the end Dr. Gorski acts as if she never died, but as I stated before they showed her in the beginning so WTF??

Blondie: I can't remember the last time I saw such a pointless character. The only thing she does in this whole movie is tell Blueberry that her group of girls is planning to escape by stealing a few objects. But this was completely pointless because at this point Rocket is killed by the chef so even if she didn't tell Blueberry the plan the chef would have just told him that the girls were trying to steal a knife, and since Blueberry knew the girls were up to something it would all yield the same result. So WHAT WAS THE POINT!?!? And even more idiotic is the fact that when Blueberry was suspicious that Sweet Pea copied the map to the brothel he then attacks Blondie for no reason. Why?! What could he have possibly suspected her for?! Nothing. She just needed something to do in this movie. POINTLESS CHARACTER.

Sweet Pea/Rocket: I wanted to have both of these characters as one piece because they are so closely bound together in this story. They are both the first protagonists who speak in the film. Sweet Pea introduces herself as mean, rude, and arrogant. What a *beep*. So for the rest of the review let's just call her Sour Pee hehe. So Sour Pee just leaves Baby Doll with her little sister Rocket. Rocket shows her around and then we see a save the cat scene (used to show a cool character as being likable) where Baby Doll saves Rocket from the chef. I hate this scene. Firstly, because the chef never tells anyone that Baby Doll tried to kill him and that Rocket was stealing. Plus we learn at the end of the movie that the film was actually about Sour Pee (thus it's her reality) so this scene would have worked great for her! She is mean but that's usually seen as cool so if she were here then we would have genuinely liked her. I've heard some people say that Rocket isn't real just like Amber and Blondie except that Rocket has more meaning and that she is in fact the rebellious half of Sour Pee. So I guess the writer didn't want her to save herself? But then why would she save herself in the fantasy world? Plus, they talk about the scene but if they are one and the same then wouldn't she already know all that? I don't know. Anyways, they get the items, Rocket is killed, Sour Pee escapes thanks to Baby Doll, and it's revealed the story is about her. My big problem with this is that we never see Sour Pee at the actual asylum. We only see her in he brothel. If Rocket was indeed fake than Sour Pee was the one who ran away from home except girls don't run away from home and join an asylum. Sour Pee was most likely a dangerous, insane girl who escapes. Great, just f*cking great. People may say that Sour Pee was normal because of the ending with the Wise Man but since the Wise Man is there we can deduce that this is all a vision of Baby Doll's after her lobotomy. Go crazy people.

Baby Doll: So, we're finally here. Almost the end. You exhausted? I sure as sh*t am. Ok, the movie starts with a music video explaining how Baby Doll got admitted into the asylum which doesn't make any sense. All we see is Baby Doll accidentally kill her sister and that her step dad is evil and as slow as molasses. She gets to the asylum and we start our adventure. She almost never talks and the first line from her mouth is "Get off of her you pig." Wow, that's how you want to start this? Ok then? She is  very shy but soon tells the girls the plan for getting out and they agree. Everything is fine until Rocket dies and then Blueberry kills Amber and Blondie and then tries to rape Baby Doll. She stabs Blueberry with the kitchen knife (this happened in reality too), breaks Sour Pee out of a holding cell, starts a fire, and then creates a distraction so that Sour Pee can escape and then Baby Doll, the shy, innocent girl, gets lobotomized. So, ummm, what was the point of all that? First, she never used the map. So why steal it? Second, I get that the movie is trying to tell us that freedom is in our minds but what reality is she in? Is she still in Sour Pee's reality? If so then being raped and having sex with clients in a brothel doesn't sound like freedom to me. So seriously, what was the point of any of this?

Conclusion: I won't disagree when people say that the movie's visual appeal is grand. And I have no problem with slow motion. But the lack of exposition just ruins it for me. I actually left the theater feeling insulted. The fact that Zach Snyder was green lit to make this movie because of it's similarities to Inception and that the studio knew Zach Snyder's name on it would make them money regardless of how bad it is is a sign that this movie is just pure bullsh*t.