SUCKER PUNCH

[Vic Sage]

from the creator of DAWN OF THE DEAD, 300 and WATCHMEN, all of which i enjoyed (to a greater or lesser degree).
so i saw this anyway, despite catastrophic reviews.

[Valadius]

He's also got the new Superman movie coming up.

[TransMonk]

Vic Sage wrote: so i saw this anyway, despite catastrophic reviews.

and...

[Vic Sage]

i didn't want to get into it until some others voiced an opinion. But as long as i'm here...

I didn't think it was all that bad. If you like Snyder's festishized violence (and i do, i really do), its got that in spades. At first, the videogame aesthetic seems to mean their are no consequences to the battles, so they are less dramatic, but as the film goes on, we see that what happens in the dream-within-the-dream is really a reflection of what's happening in the world. I would've preferred more character development to care about the girls, especially Abby Cornish's "Sweatpea", about whom we are supposed to ultimately care a great deal, but about whom we don't at all.

But overall, the story (such as it is) establishes mythic archtypes, puts them through their paces, with a final payoff of redemption. And i liked the retro-score with re-orchestrated classic rock songs presented in contemporary form, as background for the mayhem. To critique performances, or even plot, in this sort of narrative sort of misses the point. And those with a socio-political agenda to find victimization will certainly find a way to make an argument here, as they did in "300", seeing SUCKER PUNCH only in terms of geekboy fantasies of female exploitation, even in the face of the film's equally viable girl-empowerment theme, presented in a Joss Whedon style.

But in its own clumsy way, Snyder's vision (to refer to it as his story is to be overly generous) almost makes an argument for the moral necessity of fantasy, and i liked that. Plus, of course, there are the scantily dressed hot chicks kicking the shit out of monsters. and that's pretty fun, too.

All in all, if you didn't care much for 300 and/or WATCHMEN, i don't think you'll care much for this. And you might not anyway, even if you did. But its a Zack Snyder film, for better or worse, and i got a kick (no pun intended) out of it.

[Vic Sage]

i guess the reviews scared off the rest of ya wussies...

[TransMonk]

I'll see this one on DVD.

I enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead remake and I got through 300, but as much as I wanted to like Watchmen, I've never finished the whole movie.

These movies always look interesting to me in the previews, but I have a hard time watching the actual films.