An answer to viewer feedback.

[theweaselking]

I have been asked, "So, did you LIKE Sucker Punch?"

And I must respond "both yes and no".

It did exactly what it said on the tin, delivering a very pretty experience with absolutely no redeeming factors outside the pretty.

It was, basically, an hour and a half-long music video.

As great MOVIES go, kinda crap.

As visual art experiences, it was decent-to-good.

In fact, if you watch Kanye West's "Power" video and think "Hmm, I might like 60 times as much of that, but with better music", you will probably like Sucker Punch. There's no characterisation or acting or story there. What there IS is a ton of impressively rendered fantasy action sequences.

I walked in expecting exactly that, and got my money's worth.

Comments

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you there. Zack Snyder does REALLY good violence.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting positive review on Tor.com. The essence being: it's not Baby-Doll's story, it's Sweet Pea's story as told from Baby Doll's perspective...like "Puss In Boots" is really about the boy, even though the cat does everything. Gave me a different perspective from all the negative reviews.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That's not exactly a novel interpretation - not only is it in the movie, The Hammer Of Dialog inflicts that exact point on the viewer over and over again for a solid two minutes at one point.

It still doesn't make the plot or characters interesting, but, again, I say that if you wanted plot or characters, you were in the wrong theatre *and all the advertising told you that well in advance*.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

As visual art experiences, it was decent-to-good.

better or worse than 2001: a Space Odyssey?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that in 15 years, so it's really hard to say.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Everything I've read about this movie seems to come down to "it was an idiotic and brilliant movie, though whether it's idiotic brilliance or brilliantly idiotic, I cannot say."

What I can say, though, is that is not my kind of movie.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's not a matter of idiotic or brilliant.

It's a matter of "if you expected a film with an engaging narrative, you were completely in the wrong theatre entirely. Like going to see Heavy Metal expecting it to be a detective thriller or something".

The plot wasn't inchorent, or missing, or full of holes, or anything like that. It just wasn't *important*, so no effort was put in to make it interesting. Same with the characters.

The POINT of the movie was the action setpieces, so a bare minimum of everything else was presented in order to give them a frame to hang wonderfully rendered and elaborate fantasies on.

In fact? This move was *porn*, except with CGI fight scenes instead of fucking.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

i was going to read up on the SuckerPunch comics, rapidly figured there was no point. It really doesn't matter.
I enjoyed 300 for the shiny violence, didn't particularly enjoy WatchMen at all [film or books], and will go see this for the shiny violence.

that's it.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

We are planning to smuggle whiskey into the theater when we go next week. (Not as hard as it might be...said theater already serves booze. But their drinks are weaksauce and require stiffening.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Review which describes it as having a coherent, interesting story.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I don't know about "interesting", but coherent, sure. While it's never clear what *exactly* is happening in the real world since we only see the fantasy ones, it's always clear what's going on.

Thing is, it's still not an INTERESTING story. It's simple, linear, utterly predictable, and short, and exists solely so they can hang action setpieces and T&A off it.

[dgg.livejournal.com]

>It was, basically, an hour and a half-long music video<

You mean like "Queen of the Damned"?

[negumi.livejournal.com]

I was kind of expecting whorehouse Sweet Pea to turn out to be Baby Doll and whorehouse Baby Doll was going to be some aspect of her personality that allowed her to survive and complete the mission.

But yeah, fun movie and I don't get the hate people seem to have for it. I do kind of want a video game or a graphic novel set in that crazy WW1.

[rickbooth.livejournal.com]

I've not seen it yet (not out in .uk until Friday) but your review was that rarest of things, genuinely useful. Now I know it's gonna be what I thought, and I'm just fine with that.

[hel]

The absolute best part of this movie was the short about the androids and the bomb.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I think it's amazing Zack Snyder found a way to turn Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse into a popcorn movie.