Sucker Punch Review

Last year, I saw previews for the movie Sucker Punch, and instantly felt this was the greatest movie I will ever see! It had everything; explosions, giant samurai robots, fire-breathing dragons, sword fights, women in prison and more...!

So here we are after a year of eager anticipation, and I see many negative reviews. Yikes. What went wrong?!?

Let me first say I disagree with a lot of the negative reviews. I enjoyed it quite a bit, (although it's not as perfect as I'd hoped), but this is much more of a cult classic than easily accepted general public eye-candy.

I think for the average moviegoer, the story was a bit too cerebral. Sure the setup is easy enough: Baby Doll (Emily Browning), is sent to a mental institute by her psycho stepfather a la a very cool music video style intro. And that's about where common sense ends... Well, if you call naming your main character Baby Doll 'common sense'. From there, her mind sends her to work in a 1940's brothel with other girls who just want to escape. During their escape attempts, Baby Doll dances, which transports us into an almost anime style steam-punk world where all the super ass-kicking happens. Um... yea.

Zack Snyder wrote it, as well as directing and while the writing isn't bad (although maybe a bit pretentious at times), maybe he should stick to making comic book movies like 300 (where my bromance with Zack began) and Watchmen. I also wonder if focusing so much on the writing, affected his directing. Zack loves his slow motion and generally in past movies, the action was very fun and exciting to see. This time however, some action scenes felt like he was falling into the Michael Bay trap of quick close edits. Oh don't worry, nobody is that bad!

The characters are all interesting to watch, and women should appreciate it because the girls aren't dressed gratuitously. I still think they could have made the outfits a bit more sexy... but I only say that cause I like a bit of sugar in my eye-candy. Oh relax people, they made a point to show the girls are over 18!

These legally aged adults consist of Baby Doll in her blonde pigtails and school girl outfit swinging around samurai swords, (if you're into that sort of thing). We also have Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), and my personal favorite's Amber (Jamie Chung), and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens... who I hear has naked pictures of herself on the internet somewhere, again if you're into that sort of thing).

In a world where all men are awesomely evil, we do get one Wise Man played by Scott Glenn. While he did a fine job, all I could think was how perfect David Carradine would have been for this. Oh David, why did you have to pleasure yourself to death?!?

Sucker Punch is a unique movie with a look and style all it's own, feeling like a very fun mash-up of video games, and anime set to a great soundtrack. Much respect to Zack Snyder for filling in that steam-punk gap that has been missing from our movies for so long now making me very eager to see what he will do with Superman when it's finished sometime in 2012.

One last thought...
While we never got to see Baby Doll dance, I think maybe this is okay. I would be very disappointed to discover that the dance that mesmerized the bad guys so deeply was only the Macarena.

Terrified of the world I would be transported into if I tried to dance,
Deeesher

Kick Me

You kids have it sooo easy! When I was your age *said while waving my cane at you*, being a comic book geek was not so popular! I used to dream of a day when we would have 'kick ass' superhero movies. Now, after amazing hits like Spider-man, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Batman, (etc), I find myself seeing previews for a new comic adaptation and saying...WTF, another one?!?



That was my feeling when I saw the previews for Kick-Ass, (by the way, can I say that without offending anyone? Kick-Butt? Kick-Backside? Kick-Bottom? Kick-Buttocks?). Based on a comic book published by one of Marvel Comics lesser known divisions (Icon), my crack research staff (aka Wikipedia) has assured me that it is fairly close to the original storyline. But, while I am very excited about Iron Man 2, and a few other more 'traditional' superhero movies, Kick-Ass just looked goofy to me. I know, maybe it's supposed to be goofy, but I thought it sort of looked like Mystery Men (awesome but goofy Ben Stiller superhero movie), only not as funny. There are just so many mainstream comics with great storyline's, I just couldn't get excited about a silly one.

But generally, if you're not expecting too much from a movie, they usually catch you by surprise and impress the hell out of you. And it's true, I did enjoy it, but I do have some issues with it.

The story involves an average high school nobody, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who wakes up one morning and says, "...I think I want to be a superhero, even though I'm a total wuss, with no fighting experience, or special weapons or powers or anything!".

Total respect for their examining my life in high school so closely, but (for me anyway), common sense always kicks in before getting your ass kicked... or even shot in the face. Bonus points for having your heart in the right place and wanting to do something about crime and injustice, but minus a million points for proving you're a freakin' moron!

And it didn't help there was nothing to grab me and make me root for him! No parents killed when he was walking home with them in a dark alley. No uncle shot by a bad guy he could have stopped. Not even a disability he was struck with and trying to overcome! I didn't care about our hero at all. This was one of the problems I had with Ang Lee's Hulk. I didn't care about Banner. But yet watch the 1978 television's The Incredible Hulk, and in the first episode, in the first two minutes, you care about this guy! I needed something to pull me in and captivate me, and reliving high school's woes was not enough for me. I wrote silly poems... he puts on a mask. Get over it kid.

But I know what you're saying (being psychic is one of my powers), "...but Deeesher, remember this is just a silly movie!".

Or is it?

There were some funny moments yes, but it does take some very serious turns. Which brings me to this soap box that I'm going to stand on for a bit...

What is a superhero? The underdog that wants to do the right thing. With great power comes great responsibility, but yet Kick-Ass says, "with no power comes no responsibility.". This is fine but maybe if your silly movie is taking so many serious turns, they need to remember you are still fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Are you really a true superhero if you stab all the bad guys or shoot them with a machine gun? Maybe Everyone was always eager for Wolverine to hack people to bits with his claws, but (unless things have changed recently), he never did. And maybe Punisher regularly shot people, but it's a well known fact he was unstable and seriously F'd up! The same could be said about Rorschach from Watchmen.

But I did say I enjoyed this movie! The narration was original and clever... oh wait, didn't we just do that a bit better in Zombieland last year? Anyway, the action was awesome, and seeing Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) kicking ass was fun. I liked the relationship with her and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage). And did anyone else notice him channeling 1960's Adam West Batman's voice? Very funny! I was eager to hear him call someone 'citizen', or complain that some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. I also really liked Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and think he had the best storyline. Although, he will always be McLovin to me.

Maybe most of you are thinking I am being too nit-picky. Maybe I was just offended that we had a superhero movie, but nowhere did we have hot sexy women in spandex. I guess the best way to sum up my feelings is quoting one of my favorite superhero battle cries... "Spoooooon!" The Tick... there was an awesome but silly superhero!