Yes, I finally saw it. I very badly wanted to see this film in theatres, even though every review I read said that it was total crap (many times, it didn't even rate a single star). The review in my town's particular newspaper said that this film was full of rape fantasies that would only be enjoyed by lovers of Japanese schoolgirl anime/manga. I believe needless to say (but obviously I am saying it anyway), I found that a bit offensive and it only made me want to see it more, just to see on what basis the film critic would say this.
Honestly, I do not understand at all what made him think this. Yes, the film is rather like an anime. I thought this at many times. Though anime can have a lot in common with normal books and/or movies, this did smack more often of an actual anime....unsurprisingly, since it was written and directed by Zack Snyder, the man who gave us 'Watchman' and '300', both based off of graphic novels. For the record, I never saw 'Watchman' (I was going to, but with only a tepid interest in it and the movie clocking in at over three hours, I couldn't bring myself to do so), and I positively hated '300'. One could choke on the testosterone in that film.
'Sucker Punch', on the other hand, does have many anime cliches (girls in schoolgirl outfits and skimpy leather clothes wielding katanas and large guns). There is even one scene featuring a giant mecha. And one could even argue with the plot. The film critic for my town newspaper certainly did. But he sounded confused by it, which I don't understand.
A brief synopsis (without {hopefully} giving away too much):
A young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather. She begins retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy. In this alternate world, she is an orphan, turned over to work in a brothel.
She and her fellow workers must dance to lure in customers, but when she dances, she imagines herself in another world....a world in which she is a warrior, fighting for her freedom. She creates a real plan, one to escape the brothel, and enlists her friends in this bid for freedom, using her dancing to help guide her way.
Still following? Hope so. The critic in our paper didn't seem to make it past the first story jump, from the girl, BabyDoll (we never learn her true name, only the name she takes on in the world of the brothel) going into her alternate reality of the brothel. He complained of the three storylines, saying they didn't make sense. The first skip didn't confuse me. The second one had me faltering....when BabyDoll jumped from dancing to warrior mode for the first time, I was a little lost. But then she returned, and it was clear that when she danced, she lost herself in this other realm, freeing herself from the world she "lived" in, a world of imprisonment.
I don't know why the alternate reality she chose (the brothel) would have been one of imprisonment....perhaps BabyDoll felt so stifled by her circumstances (the loss of her mother, her step-father's abuses) that she could imagine no other escape but one of yet another entrapment.
To return to the film critic's comment about "rape fantasy"....I just don't understand. Yes, this takes place in a brothel, so there is a lot of reference to sex. But sex is not the same as rape. I suppose one could qualify it as rape since the girls are there against their will. But it is hard (in my opinion) for this to be qualified as "rape fantasy" when the message is clearly highly anti-rape. There is an attempted rape in the film, and the man nearly gets knifed for his troubles. Maybe the end result doesn't matter, and rape fanatics get off on the thought of rape itself, no matter the outcome, but I still think that this movie would make a poor case for a "rape fantasy" lover's dream.
The computer graphics are used to great success here, mainly in BabyDoll's imagined warrior world, but also in the opening scenes before she is taken to the asylum, a scene which in itself is a work of art. The shot of the button spinning on the floor is so pointless, yet gorgeously done.
Another high point is the film's soundtrack. Every single song was wonderful, and has me dying to go out and buy the cd.
The movie was definitely no masterpiece, but it was highly enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it, unless you are a person (like my father) who needs your movies to be classically good. This is definitely no more than a piece of good old rock 'em sock 'em, though very lovely to look at, cinema. (Watch for John Hamm's cameo....definitely a much appreciated moment in the film.)
Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us... and at the same time sings that we'll never die? Who teaches us what's real... and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us... and who holds the key that can set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight.
