As I raved in an early blog which featured the trailer for this film, I was massively excited for Sucker Punch. And I have to say, I was very impressed.
The film follows Babydoll (Browning) who is institutionalised by an abusive step father after the death of her mother, and her accidentally shooting her little sister in a bid to save her from said abusive step dad. As a result, she retreats into a fantasy world where the asylum is now a burlesque-style theatre, which reflects the asylum in layout and characters.
Here she meets and befriends Sweetpea (Cornish), Rocket (Malone), Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens). The five of them embark on a mission to escape from the asylum through a series of metaphorical fantasy scenarios influenced by Babydolls dancing. In essence, it's similar in a way to the imaginary worlds in 'The Rugrats' tv series.
In these metaphorical worlds they obtain items to use to escape, which are the equivalent of the real items in the other realities (confused yet? It's honestly not too bad when you're watching it).
The film is wonderful for many reasons. Firstly: the storyline, once you accept the different realities, is very entertaining although repetitive, and it goes from a serious to ridiculous tone in a heartbeat which was sometimes wearisome.
Second: The special effects are amazing. The quality of the cg and the use of digital backlot are almost seamless, making you really believe that the girls are in their fantasy environments.
Thirdly: The soundtrack is wonderful, with one good song or piece of music after another, I found myself thinking repeatedly throughout the film 'I need to buy/download this OST'.
All in all, the film is brilliantly enjoyable, with plenty of action that fans of sci-fi, thriller, and fantasy are sure to love.
I have to disagree with you here on some points.
ReplyDeleteI found at least for the first part of the film that I was unable to care about anything that was going on because it was all within another reality, there was pretty much no character development at all just non-stop cgi action scenes which while pretty were lacking any impact. It was like watching someone complete a videogame. All very glossy but without any meat behind it, just a shallow gimicky excuse for the whole show. Still it was entertaining just about for it's run-time just like 300, and like 300 I don't see myself watching it ever again. ***/*****