Sucker Punch

[Lakov_Sanite]

Gotta love lazy artists.

"What happened?"
"Whatever YOU think happened!"

[Tannhauser]

Do you mean like how all the critics raved about the end of The Sopranos when it just

[Threash]

They were definitely real, they were all there when babydoll is first brought in before it switches to the fantasy world.

[Bunk]

I'm still of the opinion that Sweet Pea and her sister were really just one person.

[Slyfeind]

I think Sweetpea and Babydoll could indeed be the same person. As for the rest, they could be a case of Wizard of Oz-ness, where Sweetpea/Babydoll saw them in the commons area, then incorporated them into the fantasy. So the other three girls were there, but they could have had nothing to do with each other.

[Hawkbit]

Do you mean like how all the critics raved about the end of The Sopranos when it just

See, now you gotta bring up that ending... it was obvious that

[Sand]

Saw this last night on PPV. Other than cool music and CGI it sucked. Didnt allow enough time for character development and none of the characters really drew me in.
It was like a 1.5 hour music video or computer game trailer.

And no Sweet Pea and Baby Doll werent the same person. You are reading way to much into it and trying to find depth and hidden meaning where there was absolutely NONE.

[Bunk]

You clearly were taking it far too literally and failed to read enough in to it!

Seriously though, yes it did fail somewhat at being a good movie. The fight scenes looked amazing, but dragged on for too long. I enjoyed it on a flash! Bang! Zoom! level, and I did enjoy trying to sort out all the hidden meaning and metaphor that the director *wanted* to put it in.

I think the fact that you felt there was no hidden meaning at all does show where the movie failed - but I still think it was intended to be there. Just the mere presense of the Bus Driver being in the fantasy sequences is enough to show that not everything was as it seemed.

[Sand]

Just the mere presense of the Bus Driver being in the fantasy sequences is enough to show that not everything was as it seemed.

Or it was merely a trumped up music video director saying to his creative team "Dude lets fuck with their heads by having the angel monk be the bus driver at the end. It will be fucking cool!"

[Johny Cee]

Seriously though, yes it did fail somewhat at being a good movie. The fight scenes looked amazing, but dragged on for too long. I enjoyed it on a flash! Bang! Zoom! level, and I did enjoy trying to sort out all the hidden meaning and metaphor that the director *wanted* to put it in.

The fight scenes in this movie were everything that's wrong in modern action flicks.  They were too clean, too sterile, with no sense of the heroes ever being in any danger.  It's sort of cool once in a while, if the setup and stunts are impressive enough, but it's just kind of boring after a few iterations.


Compare that to some of the '80s classics, like Die Hard or Predator.  In Die Hard, Bruce Willis gets the shit beaten out of him... and he has the visible damage of that.  In the climax of Predator, when Arnold finally goes toe to toe with the alien he gets creamed and is frantically crawling away.

[Ingmar]

Did they have any cuts that lasted longer than a half second? Because that fast cut shit is what's actually everything that's wrong in modern action movies.

[Slyfeind]

Did they have any cuts that lasted longer than a half second? Because that fast cut shit is what's actually everything that's wrong in modern action movies.

Actually Sucker Punch was pretty much the opposite of this.

[Azazel]

Red Letter Media did a review of Sucker Punch. I agree with some of their criticisms. As much as I took out of the film (or at least tried to take out of it), I was pretty bored in certain parts and was waiting for the end of the film while watching it. I also saw how the action sequences did very, very little to advance the story.

So I kinda get the big picture but the execution is far from perfect.

Just watched it. The guys in your link are dickheads, and their complains were mostly trite. Your description of it here is much better.

My verdict: Not the worst movie, but not a good movie either. Parts of it were artfully executed, or well done, but the film was too schizophrenic. It felt like it was almost cobbled together from several other films. If it'd stayed in one of it's styles it might have been a decent movie. Not something I'd need to watch again.

[HaemishM]

Wow, what a goddamn disappointment. The best thing about this movie was the art design on some of the dream/fight/dance sequences. Everything else? Boring. Very very boring. I cared about none of the characters, the "plot" was a pastiche of barely strung together situations that didn't relate to each other well at all. The whole "twist" ending was telegraphed about 10 seconds after Baby Doll got to the asylum and was trying way too hard to be way to clever and failing miserably. The most well-realized parts were the fight sequences, only they didn't have much relation to ANYTHING and so made the plot feel like a horrible excuse to have these big fights scenes all make sense within one movie. There were so many better ways to do that than the way they chose. I'm glad I didn't pay money to see this in the theater.

[Chimpy]

So I rented this BluRay from the library ($1 for a week and not out of my way). Figured I needed to see it just to understand a little of the back and forth I have seen about it.

I kept thinking it was like something that Baz Lurhmann would make if he played too many Korean MMOs.

Nice art direction, ok music, and just plain uninspiring in any other way.

[Ironwood]

Wow, what a goddamn disappointment. The best thing about this movie was the art design on some of the dream/fight/dance sequences. Everything else? Boring. Very very boring. I cared about none of the characters, the "plot" was a pastiche of barely strung together situations that didn't relate to each other well at all. The whole "twist" ending was telegraphed about 10 seconds after Baby Doll got to the asylum and was trying way too hard to be way to clever and failing miserably. The most well-realized parts were the fight sequences, only they didn't have much relation to ANYTHING and so made the plot feel like a horrible excuse to have these big fights scenes all make sense within one movie. There were so many better ways to do that than the way they chose. I'm glad I didn't pay money to see this in the theater.

Having recently watched Scott Pilgrim (The worst movie I've ever seen), I know how you feel and will avoid this one too.

Movies solely made for the fanbois are just a waste of time.

[Merusk]

Scott Pilgrim was the worst movie you've ever seen?

Have you taken great pains to avoid bad movies? While it's not great it was at least fun and consistent, and I think I've seen 3 worse movies this year alone.

[Ironwood]

It was fucking atrocious and an enormous waste of both my time personally and the acting talent involved.  Not to mention the money they must have spent making that piece of shit.

I don't see many movies anymore and this one was one that certain people not a million miles away squealed about like schoolgirls.

And it was utter fucking shite with no merit whatsoever.

[HaemishM]

It was fucking atrocious and an enormous waste of both my time personally and the acting talent involved. 

 

[Ironwood]

Sorry, it was.  It was just a step above Super Mario Brothers.

[Merusk]

You've officially crossed over into old-man-hood.  Congrats.

Really.

[Bunk]

Come on, you can't tell me that you didn't at least laugh at the vegan jokes.

[Samwise]

Scott Pilgrim is easily the best video game movie of all time.

I realize that's not saying a whole lot.  I liked it anyway, though.   

[Ironwood]

Come on, you can't tell me that you didn't at least laugh at the vegan jokes.

I remember smiling at the Password segment and that was it.  Again, we can chalk this up to being NOT FOR YOU and I'll be cool with that.  I just wish I'd known beforehand so I could have avoided.

And that's the thing :  I really, really wanted to have a gander at Sucker Punch, if only for the, you know, older women pretending to be schoolgirls.  But I know if I do I'll probably end up hating it all because, frankly, all the reviews and word of mouth and friends who report back all have a big stamp that says 'NOT FOR YOU.'

Meh.

[HaemishM]

NOT FOR YOU usually means we like it but it probably does suck. Anyone who thinks Sucker Punch DOESN'T suck is really delusional.

However, Scott Pilgrim was awesome sauce on awesome toast, and I'm surprised you didn't find it funny. I can see how some people wouldn't get it at all, but I think it was brilliant and I would have thought you'd have gotten all the jokes.

[Bunk]

Best way to give yourself an excuse to see Sucker Punch, would be to go in knowing that its basically just four extended music videos (full of hot bad-girls), with some "edgy" "I don't know what the hell is really going on here" interconnecting story bits.

I honestly thought it could have worked, but the director got so wrapped up in making the music video interludes awesome, that he forgot to make the rest of it make sense. On top of that, the interludes actually end up going on for too long, and you lose any sense of what connected them to the "story".

Is it great? No. I still thought the visuals made it worthwhile to watch though.

Would probably have been really interesting to see high, had that been something I was in to.

[Ironwood]

I can see how some people wouldn't get it at all, but I think it was brilliant and I would have thought you'd have gotten all the jokes.

Don't do that.

[Engels]

I can see how some people wouldn't get it at all, but I think it was brilliant and I would have thought you'd have gotten all the jokes.

Don't do that.

I have studiously avoided the film for this reason. I watched enough of the trailers to see that I was just not going to find it that special, much the same way I didn't find Kick Ass any good, just exploiting a fleeting hipster zeitgeist.

[Ironwood]

Kick Ass was ok.  But just Ok.

And that was mostly because of Hit Girl and Big Daddy.  Though I kinda thought that was the point anyways.

[Margalis]

Scott Pilgrim was unwatchable dreck.

Terrible overly cute and clever directing, another patented Michael Cera being Michael Cera and not actually acting at all acting performance, horrible obvious intelligence-insulting jokes. Yikes.

I get why some people like it but it is very much a bad bad movie meant to appeal to a very specific demographic rather than anything remotely good. Characterization, plot, emotional resonance - it has none of those things!

I give people a pass when they say they love the movie but in terms of quality it compares unfavorably to "Morlocks", last Saturday's SyFy movie of the week. It's just a 100% pure fan service movie.

[Thrawn]

And that was mostly because of Hit Girl and Big Daddy.  Though I kinda thought that was the point anyways.

Heh, Big Daddy, or more specifically Nicolas Cage nearly ruined Kick Ass for me because I thought he was so terrible in it.

[Slyfeind]

Heh, Big Daddy, or more specifically Nicolas Cage nearly ruined Kick Ass for me because I thought he was so terrible in it.

Blargh. I don't know what Nick Cage was doing in that movie. Was he playing mild-mannered? Was he playing a superhero who was playing mild-mannered? Was he playing a character who played mild-mannered in his alter ego and played superhero in his hero form? Maybe Nick Cage didn't even know what Nick Cage was doing.

[UnSub]

Nic Cage was doing his Adam West impersonation when he was in the Big Daddy suit. He was awesome.

[Kitsune]

The movie itself fucked up Big Daddy, it's not Nick's fault.  Had they stuck to the comic book's rendition of Big Daddy, the various fucked up things that he was doing would've fit much better, whereas it didn't really fit at all with the movie's claim that he was an actual vigilante cop instead of just batshit crazy.

[DraconianOne]

The movie itself fucked up Big Daddy, it's not Nick's fault.  Had they stuck to the comic book's rendition of Big Daddy, the various fucked up things that he was doing would've fit much better, whereas it didn't really fit at all with the movie's claim that he was an actual vigilante cop instead of just batshit crazy.

You do know why they couldn't stick to the comic book's version of Big Daddy don't you?