What's good about Sucker Punch

[laura_seabrook]

Short version - the trailers on before it!

Why, well they were advertising THOR and GREEN LANTERN, and it looks like they got both of those right - at least they based them on the source material (Thor has Loki, Sif and Eternals; GL has Carol Ferris, Abin Sur, and Oa). Both films I will probably watch, and even if they turn into camp, might enjoy.

About the only thing I knew about Sucker Punch was the posters I'd seen at the Reading Cinema. It looked like a cross between Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Kill Bill. As it was, I was soundly disappointed with what I felt was a "dishonest" film.

I felt the film had a "bait and switch" subject, a way of misleading the audience that may have promised one thing but delivered another. I found the over-the-top battle sequences totally jarring from the rest of the film. You could have cut these out from the film and made two entirely different films entirely. None of the action sequences had much suspense in them because they are fantasies within a fantasy, and we never really know if any of the characters other than Baby Doll and Sweatpee are real or not. Instead, these sequences really served as excuses for tit and arse posing - scantily clad women with big guns.

The other bait and switch is the change of main character towards the end.I don't think it works, because the movie erodes the whole idea that any of the characters have any substance or worth caring about. The inclusion of the "Charlie" character - who appears in each of the fantasy sequences - as a "real character" at the end reinforces that idea. Maybe the whole story is just a dream.

Also, of course, I have a couple of other issues. I have a phobia about seeing things being poked into eyes, and because my Epilepsy was caused by an accident to the front of my head, a lobotomy feeds into both of those fears. That was the true horror for me. And oddly enough the killing of two dragons in the film just didn't sit right with me either. I was outraged by it.

Still, this is fantasy all the way through - just not good fantasy. It made me think of Heavy Metal magazine, like Fifth Element had. Only, instead of being drawn by Moebius, this film seemed like it was drawn by Pepe Moreno!