Why would they remake "Dragonslayer"?
You liked the dragon in Voyage of the Dawn Treader?! I thought it was a marginal improvement on Sean Connery's dragon in Dragonheart. More explained by technology.
Haven't seen Sucker Punch as yet.
Well, this is the most reasonable explanation I've heard yet, but it still doesn't hold much water. I guess maybe if the brothel world were a little more grounded in any sort of reality maybe this explanation would work better, but the brothel fantasy was so off the wall removed from reality that it seemed much more than just an augmented reality.
I think that it seems like in a wacky off-the-wall movie like this we should have been having a lot more fun but because of the grimdark story it doesn't really come across as fun (to most reviewers and myself, YMMV), but I also don't necessarily think I need to read a review to be able to feel the director's enthusiasm. I also kind of felt the same way in Watchmen - that he was doing a paint by numbers adaptation. Thing is, here, it wasn't an adaptation but it still felt pretty "paint by numbers" to me.
Well, believe it or not I was really excited about this until I saw the reviews and heard about it. Then I saw it and it sucked. Believe me, I'm not above saying I'm wrong about something if my initial opinion was way off base. I may have felt negative going in, but I'm an intellectually honest enough person that I know what I like and what I don't.
This, exactly. There was little to no symbolism, metaphor, idiom, or anything else in any of the action sequences. They were literally just 15 minute music videos that weren't particularly good. Now, maybe some people saw something in them, but they seemed pretty straightforward and simplistic direct tie-ins to the action in sub-reality 1 to me.
I don't think you're wrong in seeing the brothel as an "off the wall removed from reality" vision. But I've known people -- and if I'm brutally honest, there have times I've been guilty of this myself -- where the fantasy isn't so much romanticized escapism as it is a glorified version of perceived oppression. So there are circumstances whereby Baby Doll's transference of the asylum to a brothel -- a situation where her abilities afford her some semblance of not merely control, but acceptance and glamor -- actually do hold water.
The issue for Suckerpunch, though, is whether or not the film deftly enough presents such a possibility -- to make it "grounded in any sort of reality," as you put it. And like I said, I don't think anyone would be wrong to suggest that the film isn't quite subtle enough to believably accomplish this feat. Given the very clear disconnect between the fantasy-action sequences and any semblance of symbolism, metaphor, idiom ... I can't with any conviction say that Snyder's approach was precise enough to persuasively convey my personal interpretation of the brothel reality.
Reading reviews is almost always a mistake. They all too often praise what I hate and decry what I wind up liking.
Then you need to do a better job at finding a reviewer you agree with more often than not. Reviewers are individuals, and can be just as varied as the rest of us.
Individually a review shouldn't matter (unless it is a trusted reviewer), but if there is a critical consensus - Well, then that usually means something.
Yep. I have a reviewer that I respect a great deal (he's local) and while I don't agree with him from time to time he shares similar interests in film with me. He happened to like "Sucker Punch". I'm also keen on Roger Ebert, though I've disagreed with his reviews in the past.
That's not surprising 
Agreed. It was the combination of elements: the sweeping landscapes, steampunk tech, miitary action combined with some really nice weapon/fighting work.
As an aside, I know he's way past his glory days of the early 2000's, but I would have loved to see McFarlane Toys produce a line of Sucker Punch figures. I can only imagine how awesome his sculptors back then would have turned out that Mech!
^ There are busts out of the girls but no action figures or anything. I don't think any license was given out. I'd love this to adapted into a comic book and someone like Frank Quietly or Bryan Hitch to do the art.
Here is what I think is a very fair appraisal of the film, from one woman's point of view. I agree with her for the most part, disagree in some of her evaluation of what the actual plot is, but this is a well thought dissection of the film.
http://www.chud.com/45479/high-plains-scribbler-the-feminism-of-fishnets/
I'm particularly fond of this snippet;
That reminded me of the shot in Bad Boys II when Bay's camera goes through the dance club at the beginning, falls down to the floor, actually turns to look upward and progresses between women's legs looking up their dresses. It was then that it was official to me...Bay makes me fucking sick. People complaining about Sucker Punch more than that man's bullshit misogyny makes me weep.
http://www.chud.com/45479/high-plains-scribbler-the-feminism-of-fishnets/
I'm particularly fond of this snippet;
That reminded me of the shot in Bad Boys II when Bay's camera goes through the dance club at the beginning, falls down to the floor, actually turns to look upward and progresses between women's legs looking up their dresses. It was then that it was official to me...Bay makes me fucking sick. People complaining about Sucker Punch more than that man's bullshit misogyny makes me weep.
Oooh I was hoping someone from Chud would write an article on "Sucker Punch". I loved their interpretation of "Inception" they did last summer.
Thanks for posting the link, T'Baio.
When I first saw the trailers, I thought, really, an asylum for supermodels, really. How lame. Then, I saw the film. Ok, I get it. The girls in the imaginary brothel were hot.
**Contains MAJOR spoilers**
I think Babydoll have the brothel imagination because it's rooted in reality. She's not completely delusional yet. If she is, she would be in paradise instead. She still knows she's a prisoner. Maybe she can't handle the facts that her mother died, she killed her sister, and now she's stuck in an asylum. It's too depressing. Did she purposely imagine she's in a brothel? Did she want that to be her reality? If not, then maybe she subconsciously did this. Her mind altered her reality slightly to something she can handle so she can somewhat function in the real world. And not have a complete alternate world where she can't understand what's happening around her. Not a world she wants, but one she can cope with. Mental disorders aren't always logical.
Moving on... When Babydoll first entered the asylum, she noticed the map, lighter, knives, and the key, before she entered the brothel imagination. Then Babydoll came up with the escape plan and fought the three samurais. I figured she was fighting her inner demons, doubts, and fears. At first they were winning, but she eventually overcomes. She and the girls have to steal the items. Then, came the WW2/map mission. The girls working as a team, in real life and in the action sequence. That was great and everything went smoothly. But, as Blue gets suspicious and the lobotomy date draw nears, I feel tension. I knew they could fail and it will be reflected in the imagination. During the knife/train mission, we see they can die. Near the end, we see Blue's stab wound from the brothel to show the realities interact. Snyder should have put the danger earlier in the film, so we will know how dangerous it can be much sooner.
Then, there's Amber and Blondie. I wished Snyder did more with these characters, but I don't think their deaths came from bad plotting. I think he was inspired from the first Matrix movie. When I saw the scene, I immediately thought of Apoc's and Switch's death scene. It was tense. The characters, in both movies, were completely defenseless, and murdered in quick succession, all while a villain made his speech.
And as for the mentor being the bus driver that helped Sweet Pea at the end, I still say that whole scene is in Babydoll's head. She has no idea what happened to Sweet Pea after the escaped and hoped that she found her way home. The only other explaination is that Babydoll actually met the bus driver sometime before the movie began. Maybe he helped her out the same way he helped Sweet Pea, a kind act she'll remember for a long time. That would be the reason, in Babydoll's mind, he became her mentor.
When I first saw the trailers, I thought, really, an asylum for supermodels, really. How lame. Then, I saw the film. Ok, I get it. The girls in the imaginary brothel were hot.
**Contains MAJOR spoilers**
I think Babydoll have the brothel imagination because it's rooted in reality. She's not completely delusional yet. If she is, she would be in paradise instead. She still knows she's a prisoner. Maybe she can't handle the facts that her mother died, she killed her sister, and now she's stuck in an asylum. It's too depressing. Did she purposely imagine she's in a brothel? Did she want that to be her reality? If not, then maybe she subconsciously did this. Her mind altered her reality slightly to something she can handle so she can somewhat function in the real world. And not have a complete alternate world where she can't understand what's happening around her. Not a world she wants, but one she can cope with. Mental disorders aren't always logical.
Moving on... When Babydoll first entered the asylum, she noticed the map, lighter, knives, and the key, before she entered the brothel imagination. Then Babydoll came up with the escape plan and fought the three samurais. I figured she was fighting her inner demons, doubts, and fears. At first they were winning, but she eventually overcomes. She and the girls have to steal the items. Then, came the WW2/map mission. The girls working as a team, in real life and in the action sequence. That was great and everything went smoothly. But, as Blue gets suspicious and the lobotomy date draw nears, I feel tension. I knew they could fail and it will be reflected in the imagination. During the knife/train mission, we see they can die. Near the end, we see Blue's stab wound from the brothel to show the realities interact. Snyder should have put the danger earlier in the film, so we will know how dangerous it can be much sooner.
Then, there's Amber and Blondie. I wished Snyder did more with these characters, but I don't think their deaths came from bad plotting. I think he was inspired from the first Matrix movie. When I saw the scene, I immediately thought of Apoc's and Switch's death scene. It was tense. The characters, in both movies, were completely defenseless, and murdered in quick succession, all while a villain made his speech.
And as for the mentor being the bus driver that helped Sweet Pea at the end, I still say that whole scene is in Babydoll's head. She has no idea what happened to Sweet Pea after the escaped and hoped that she found her way home. The only other explaination is that Babydoll actually met the bus driver sometime before the movie began. Maybe he helped her out the same way he helped Sweet Pea, a kind act she'll remember for a long time. That would be the reason, in Babydoll's mind, he became her mentor.
I believe that the brothel was created as a construct because it's looked upon by society as a place that is degrading and controlling of women. Just like an aslyum is that way for a patient. It's a place where she can interact with the rest of the girls and they can plot their freedom more easier than in the aslyum.
Easy fix: the action sequences are hallucinations resulting from the forced application of an experimental drug, and - cribbing from The Matrix here, natch - if the girls die during these reveries, they die in the real world. Heck, because of the whole "unexplained drugs" thing, you could even have several of them sharing the dream; the important thing would be to actually lose one of the girls at one point. That way, the action sequences become important, and you could still have the girls imagining the real world as a brothel so long as you made it clear that that was a deliberate game they played.
There, fixed your movie, Snyder. That'll be a hundred bucks, and I'm afraid my time machine's broken, so you'll have to use your own.
Hugs,
Gaith
Um...one of the girls was lost, and it happened in the real world. What is this about drugs?? There were no drugs involved in the film.
It doesn't need one