Sucker Punch – Review

“Regardless, avoid at all costs, in fact use the money you were going to spend at the theater and donate it to Japan tsunami relief charities and put your money to better use.”

I think this would apply to all movies right now…

good review I though my friend.

Snap!

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER. Sure there’s a shallow plot but while it was thin I never expected it to be that thin. Didn’t hate it but I was disappointed.

Probably could have used one less dream sequence (or better yet repeat one dream sequence so there’s at least some cohesive continuity).Also it would have been nice to see Baby Doll actually dance as everyone said she was amazing at it. Lastly I would have liked it all to to be less of a music video. I think that Snyder was going for deep imagery but it would have been better with dialog as opposed to a songs like Sweet Dreams:(

You too?! Man, I seem to be the only one who liked this film – liked it a lot. I know nothing’s going to change your mind, but I’ll offer my opinion anyway. I would just want to point out how much Snyder paid attention to the details in this film, and that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

(I’ve discussed this already in other place, so I’ll just copy/paste some bits)

This story, as I saw it, was about redemption. Babydoll, a girl who is abused by her stepfather loses her mother and her little sister in a single night, and is committed to the Asylum. There, she meets the other girls, but the situation is not much different – the orderlies abuse the patients (strongly hinted to be sexual). That is why the alternate reality is in fact a Brothel – it’s the way the girls actually see the Asylum.

They form a plan to escape, with Babydoll having only days before the lobotomy. Note, in the fantasy world, the lobotomy is referred to a ‘virginity’, to be lost courtesy of the High Roller (the lobotomy doctor). This is because her body may not be ‘pure’ anymore (because of her stepfather’s abuse), but her mind IS pure.

As the story progresses, Babydoll’s physical escape transforms into something else. Think about it: on the outside, nothing awaits her. Her family is dead, and she can only go back to her abusive stepfather. Far from a prosperous future. Here’s where the redemption comes into play – Babydoll’s obviously blaming herself for the demise of her sister, and with nothing outside these walls, she wants to free herself by enabling Sweet Pea (“the strongest of them all, and the only one who stands a chance out there”) to run away. This will be Babydoll’s release. After she’s accomplished that, she welcomes the very thing she was trying to evade – the lobotomy, because it will make her forget everything bad. The lobotomy is in fact her way to ‘paradise’.

Now, keep in mind that you see the film from the perspective of Babydoll – and Babydoll is a mentally unstable person, therefore the distinction between reality and fantasy is never clear, because it just cannot be clear. It is obvious, however, that what happens in the real world (Asylum) is mirrored in the Brothel in a different and metaphorical context. As an example, Blondie and Amber weren’t really shot by Blue – they probably underwent a lobotomy as well, which is further enforced by Dr. Vera Gorski not mentioning any homicides, and the fact the girls die when High Roller was there (aka the doctor).

(note: This is in fact hinted very strongly at the beginning of the film – that this was never really Babydol’s story, but Sweet Pea’s. This is mostly evident when the doc is about to lobotomize Babydoll, and then the scene switches to the Brothel and wee see Sweet Pea playing “Babydoll”.)

And the ‘flat’ and ‘one-dimensional’ characters, as I see it, this is again Snyder paying attention to details. Bear in mind Babydoll was in the asylum for a very short time, no more than a few days. In such a short amount of time, there was no chance she could’ve known the girls thoroughly and flesh out their personalities. And more importantly, what we see (i.e. the film) is in fact her fantasy. As such, in her fantasy, she probably simply imagined the few basic traits of the girls accompanying her (and quite possibly projecting some of herself into them). That’s why they seem flat and undeveloped – because that’s the only way thy could have been. Also, the developed characters – Dr. Vera Gorski and Blue Jones – were the ones Babydoll interacted extensively with. The first was her therapist, and the other her abuser. She came to know both of them in a more depth than the other girls.

And finally, about the very ending being – Sweet Pea riding into the sunset on the bus – it’s in Babydoll’s mind, i.e. it’s only how Babydoll imagined Sewwt Pea’s escape, not how it actually happened. It’s even evident because the Wise Man and th Boy Soldier appear there, and in the color scheme. If you noticed, the opening (in the real world, the Asylum) is all blue / black /grey, while the fantasy (the Brothel) is mostly orange / red / yellow. The ending is also in that fantasy color palette. And it makes sense: with Babydoll staying inside the Asylum there was no where for her to know how Sweet Pea’s escape actually went.

And about the details I keep mentioning, here’s a few (some of themweren’t noticed by me, though, since I only saw the film once and such little things simply escaped my attention):

1) Babydoll’s bullet ruptures the pipe (steam hisses out), takes a deflection and bursts the light bulb, and kills the little sister. In Babydoll’s fantasies, the Nazis die with steam gushing out of them like the pipe, the robots in the train burst into fragments just like the light bulb, and it is precisely Babydoll who kills the little dragon.

2) Babydoll doesn’t speak for the first 20 or so minutes of the movie. This gives you a feel of having all of your decisions made for you by people you distrust and dislike. Her first line is one of agency: “Let her go, pig,” with a knife to the cook’s throat.

3) The “hero board” — the chalkboard they write on, that is — has a lineup of dancers in the ‘show’ on the other side. The names are in reverse order of their deaths. Foreshadowing!

4) Babydoll’s real-world asylum uniform dress and brothel-filter dress are the same, to reinforce a) that one’s a filter of the other and b) that she hasn’t yet been ‘assimilated’ (corrupted by the orderlies) into the ‘brothel’ setting.

5) Sweet Pea really is the ‘strongest of them all’ – in every fight scene, she is the only one to not take hits, unlike Babydoll and Rocket, for example. Not to mention she consistently saves Rocket’s ass, but that seems par for the course.

And much more…

All in all, Snyder may have had very simple material to work with, but he had certainly built around it with great care. It is full of symbolism, the unveiling of which doesn’t leading to some great revelations about ‘the meaning of life’, but it still is, to me, a well-rounded film.