Film Review: Sucker Punch

"No Madam, I am not going to do the strip-down version of High School Musical!"

Sucker Punch (2011)

Overall Score: 73%

Certified: Trumpeter Swan

Score Breakdown:

Performance: 85% Plot: 65% Script: 35% Visuals: 100% Music: 85%

Sucker Punch (2011)

Director(s): Zack Snyder

Writer(s): Zack Snyder, Steve Shibuya

Producer(s): Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder

Distributor(s): Warner Bros. Pictures

Country: United States

Language: English

Starring: Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, etc.

Studio(s): Legendary Pictures, Cruel & Unusual Films, Lennox House Films

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 110 Minutes

I first informed this movie, since High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008). I opened HSM 3 page on wikipedia and actually clicked on every cast's link so that I could see their future work. When I clicked on Vanessa Hudgen's, Sucker Punch was listed for 2011 release, and when I clicked the link, the page was still almost empty at the time, but I did get the information that Zack Snyder is going to direct it (he did 300 in 2007, Watchmen in 2009, and currently on a Superman movie project, Superman: Man of Steel set to be released in 2012), and the brief description was 'Alice in Wonderland with machine guns'. I was so intrigued and excited (because I love Alice in Wonderland. And machine guns), and when the character posters came out, and then the trailers, there's excitement building up and I can't wait to see the movie.

The plot tells the story of a young woman in the 1950s called Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who has lost everything that matter to her and sent off to a burlesque/jail-like/mental hospital to be lobotomized by her step father. There, with another four girls named Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), and Rocket (Jena Malone). She will have to find the things the Wise Men (Scott Glenn), in order to escape before The High Roller (Jon Hamm) came to buy her virginity. To get the items, she created a whole other worlds in order to escape. The Lennox House is guarded and managed by Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) and his men, and Madam Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino) is the dance trainer who is also a doctor of the mental house.

The plot of the movie is pretty simple, actually. There's some thinking to it, as the film plays with themes of reality, sub-reality, and fantasy. But it doesn't require big thinking like we have to do when we watch Inception (2010) even though it has its own twist in the end. I found the plot very simple, but there's so much potential that left unused. There's so much loopholes and not enough background of other characters, or the Lennox house, for that matter. I know for a fact, that to get a PG-13 rating, Zack Snyder have to cut a love scene, a couple of dance sequences, and some other scenes to avoid an R-17 rating but won't be affecting the movie. somehow, I still wish I could see the whole thing (I'll probably get the Director's Cut DVD). I wish the movie would last longer so there's more worlds to discover and explore, and more depths to the world of Baby Doll's mind and reality, more adventure. 

The acting was not bad at all. It was rather good, to be honest. I really enjoy the girls being total badasses and Carla Gugino's portrayal as Madam Gorski. What really interesting is Oscar Isaac and how he play such a mafia-like, jackass boss. What is an epic fail is the script. The conversations are very cliché and the dialogues are very poor. But, I found some interesting quotes from Madam Gorski and the Wise Men (mostly about survival), and the last sentence Abbie Cornish said was very exciting. 

The visuals are...... stunning-it's Zack Snyder, for God's sake! The slow motion, the digital images, the color. If you notice, the color of the movie changes. In the beginning of the movie, they uses dark themes, and blue for the Lonnox house, basically normal coloring. But upon entering the fantasy world, the color fades and has a dreamy effect, similar to Zack's previous work, 300 (2007).

The music really supports the movie. Emily Browning's voice (she covered two amazing songs for the movie soundtrack) in the movie intro is very beautiful and haunting and really supports the sad scene. The rest of the soundtrack provides support and created an atmosphere, a fantasy, a trance and high feeling which is why Björk makes a perfect fit in one of the tracks. They have this burlesque, theatrical, rock and roll, alternative feeling that's going on. I was surprised, none of the tracks from the trailer was put in the movie or the soundtrack because it would really make a great addition. 

Overall, Sucker Punch is not a great movie, plot-wise and script-wise,  but it's an epic movie, based on the visuals, the worlds and performance-wise. This movie is a bitch-slap to sexism by somehow promoting feminism, saying that sex does not matter when it comes to survival, by giving thrills and an adrenaline rush (well it gives me, anyway), an excitement. Like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), it's a little shame because both movies has a lot more potential, deeper digs could have been done. It's still brilliant, in a no-brainer, popcorn movie way. But Zack Snyder and Rick Carter (production designer) made it up to us by giving candies for the eyes. And I gotta say, I love the candies.

+R