Thoughts I Had While Watching Sucker Punch
September 25, 2011 3 Comments
The grrl-power CGI fest by Zack Snyder who made 300 and Watchmen.
(Complete list. There weren’t all that many.)
- Hey, this beginning is kinda like the story of the ‘Janie’s Got A Gun’ video. But not as good.
- What a shame about Donnie Darko’s girlfriend.
- Ironically, I suspect the only thing I don’t like about Bjork’s music is Bjork’s singing voice.
- This all seems like the sort of thing a gay person would assume a straight person would find sexy.
- Do I have to watch this whole thing or can I stop after the first two action sequences and still claim to have ‘seen’ it?
- If you could go back in time and show this movie to people from at >30 years ago, would they (a) be blown away or (b) lynch you?
- I’m kinda glad they’re not actually making us watch her supposedly ‘amazing’ dance routines. At least there’s that.
All in all a pretty sad experience.
I liked the movie, though I do sympathize with your impressions, especially the one about it being “the sort of thing a gay person …”
Anyway, the reason I liked it is because I thought it was an attempt to manifest the subconscious, the dream world, in the form of a film. It lacked the textures and foreboding auditory experiences of David Lynch, but it reminded me a bit of his work anyway.
It was an amazing attempt, but it did, indeed, fall short.
I see what you’re saying but I just think there’s a tendency to be overly impressed by the visuals and the ‘new’ vibe they help to give the movie, so you end up forgetting most of movie history and grading on a curve.
The visuals were awesome and amazing (they are what made me want to see it) but they were in the service of a truly empty and shallow (not to mention cliche and slightly ridiculous) story. More to the point, they trick you into thinking there’s something ‘new’ about the attempt when there isn’t, not really.
The idea of a girl (or someone) visiting a dream world full of metaphor and parallel characters, and that world being vividly represented on film, doesn’t just go back to David Lynch. Have you ever seen, like, The Wizard Of Oz? Kind of helps to put a movie like this in proper context I think.
I liked it. I enjoyed the allegorical sequences, although they did get a bit repetitious. The title apparently refers to the ending, which was unexpected.
This is a film that people either love or hate, nothing in between.