Sucker Punch (2011)

If you want to test out your Blu-ray player, HDTV or surround sound system, then Sucker Punch is the movie for you. This movie is visually and audibly incredible, but it suffers from a weak and, at times, confusing plot. Zack Snyder has a talent for directing action, but he should stick to adapting other people's stories.

This movie deserves its bad reviews and ratings for a few reasons. The main one being the uncut version is almost essential to make the movie plainly clear. I mean you could figure it out from the standard cut but the uncut is crystal. It still would not make everyone happy because people hate it when a movie give them the finger (unless it is Deadpool and does it for comedy).This movie is action porn in its most pure sense. The action is beautiful, well choreographed. The set pieces cover it all. You have your Japanese Samurai monsters with a big mini-gun, you have faceless steampunk Nazi's with a big mech robot boom boom boom. You then have knights and orcs and a dragon with a steampunk plane, finally futuristic train with evil i-robots and the old move along the train combat. A noble death, a bittersweet getaway. The bad guy loses, the good girl (baby) dies (kind of, see another nod to every Japanese Samurai movie ever when the main guy has to die). Mix in some music, tiny girls in skimpy gear and you have a soup of "everything a teen boy wants to watch". And that is the point. This is what annoys people. This movie really has no point, but unlike others movies, this one shows you that. The rest still pretend they have substance. Total Recall (the real one) ends essentially with a 'then he woke up' flash in the sky (well a then he gets lobotomised) that we all buy. This is the same thing but we get offended.I love it, and this is why I give it 9 stars. Not because I am smart. This all came from reading other reviews and then finally watching the uncut version. I hated the 5th Element the first time I saw it, but now its in my top then. This one also grows on you the more you watch it.

This movie got pretty crappy reviews. I mean I only watched because my friend forced me to watch it with her because she loved it. But, I surprisingly loved it too.I found the story line hauntingly beautiful. Yes, it was out there, but I actually think the film married all the differing elements extremely well. I was completely immersed in the story from start to finish and felt deeply about the characters. I thought the action was great, the CGI wasn't incredible but whatever. I think this film gets a bad wrap because it is overwhelming in nature. The fantasy action sequences which seemingly happen within our protagonist's mind are kind of random. However, i think instead it was an incredible showing of how strong she was as a character in spirit. Instead of watching her dance (presumingly sexually) on front of paying men, we watched her defeat fantastical enemies in her mind. Metaphorically I think she was defeating the inner demons of her mind. Completely underrated film, would highly recommend. Your motto when watching this film should be "just go with it". Don't overthink it or scrutinise it. Watch it, then review it.

When I started watching this movie I was expecting something different than it actually was. However, I don't feel disillusioned with it because I've had very low expectations. The whole story revolves around a girl (we never know her real name but only a nickname, Baby Doll) who is hospitalized in an asylum after trying to protect her younger sister from a dangerous stepfather (responsible for their mother's death and eager to lay hands on their money). Unfortunately, the shot hits the sister and not the stepfather, who bribes the director of an asylum to lobotomize her, which would make her forget everything, nullifying her personality. From here, the film is lost as it enters a parallel universe, imagined by the girl in order to escape her own reality. The asylum ceases to be a madhouse to become into a clandestine brothel for very rich clients, and where she is forced to dance seductively. With each dance, however, she more deeply imagines surreal worlds of fighting, avoiding facing real life and feeding the dream of escaping.Visually, the film is very good: high doses of good quality CGI, great cinematography with good framing and some very original camera shots, good sets, consistent and well-crafted costumes. But this isn't enough to make a good movie if we consider cinema's the art of telling a story through images, words and gestures. The script is the biggest flaw in the film: almost everything it shows is imagined inside the head of the main character, but the audience doesn't quite understand the reason that led her to such a mental escape. There is also no effort to articulate this with what happens to the character in real life. We are simply disassociated from reality, and this makes the film complicated to understand. Another problem is the lack of originality in the script, which randomly blends a huge range of influences, copied or reinvented from dozens of other films and series, such as "Harry Potter", "Lord of the Rings", "Twillight Zone", "Charlie's Angels", "Kill Bill", "Naruto", "Dragon Ball" etc. And everything gets worse when we see theatrical and stylized fighting scenes, clearly inspired by Japanese anime. The way the movie tries to be sexy without getting it is also unpleasant. Emily Browning is the best actress that the film presents, and her character is the one that is properly developed, but she's far from what I would call a sexy woman, and a blonde wig (looks like a cosplay) and a short skirt aren't enough to change that. At that point, she loses to the supporting cast, who compensate some lack of talent with more curvaceous bodies. The soundtrack is good, as it's consistent with the film's retro and punk environment, appearing at the right times and knowing how to disappear when its not needed.