Did I mention everyone should avoid Sucker Punch at all costs?
It's kinda sad too, because the action scenes are REALLY well done. I mean, we've all seen Nazis get shot up. But when you shoot up STEAM POWERED Nazis, you're turning it up to 11!
Hell, I'll go ahead and spoil the movie for you since even if you did want to see it you'll find out how ******** everything is in the first 10 minutes.
~Sucker Punch~
Dead mom. Main character cries a bit. Younger sister cries a bit. Douchey uncle or stepfather or whatever pretends to be broken up about it. Finds will. Sees that the kids get everything. He drinks a bit and after careful consideration, decides to give the older daughter a good boning. She resists. He remembers there's two daughters and locks the first one in her room with one of those inside out doors. You know, with the lock on the wrong side? Anyway, she climbs out her window, saves her sister, and at some point she got a gun. She shoots the guy... or tries to, but ends up missing from feet away. The bullet? Why, it killed her sister of course.
And keep in mind, they still haven't shown the title card yet.
Guy calls the nut house, they knock her out, and as we see them drive to said nut house we get our title finally in the form of streaks of rain on the window. It's a really impressive effect, like all the others in this movie, I must admit.
They take the girl in and strap her in a chair while a doctor approaches ominously with a hammer and a pick. For those of you who don't know, they use to do a very sick and twisted procedure up until recently called a lobotomy. You may have heard it. Do you know what it is? I don't suggest a Google search as some of the images made my stomach turn, because it involves driving previously mentioned pick into someone's brain through the eye socket. What does this do? Well, it basically kills your soul.
Suddenly the girl in the chair, somehow a different girl, is standing up, calling for them to stop and as the camera pans back we see that it's some sort stage performance, the girl stating that she gets some of the things that have happened thus far in the movie, but the lobotomy thing was going to far. Confused, we are reintroduced to the main character in a scene mirroring her arrival at the nut house only this time she's dropped off by a man of the church, still played by the same guy from before, and the nut house is one of those clubs.
Our hero is to be a "dancer", like the rest of the girls at the "club" and the owner is all giddy because in three days he'll handing her off to some other guy and make a lot of money.
A couple boring talky scenes later, our hero is put on the spot to do some dancing. She closes her eyes and one snowflake on her eye lashes later in an extreme close up (something that happens many times through out the movie, much like the slow down then sped up action sequences), she opens her eyes and she's standing in the courtyard of a japanese style temple on a wintry day.
Uhhhhhhhhhh....
She goes in the temple. Old guy says some deep things as old guys in movies tend to do and explains that she needs five things to get out: a map, a lighter, a knife, a key, and the last thing she has to figure out on her own. I thought it was the power of love and friendship, but it turns out it was just her. I'll explain when I get to the ending.
Then the movie remembers there was supposed to be some action in here somewhere, she has to fight three giant, demon, samurai statue, things because the plot said so. She takes them down and we come back to the "real" world where she just finished her dance and everyone is stunned at how awesome it was.
Yes, as awesome as that action scene was, this revelation will ruin every other action scene in the movie. Because every time she dances, we get pulled into some awesome fight scene or another, each of which amazing and deserving of it's own movie. What's wrong with that you might be asking? We know the hero lives. It is devoid of tension. Sure, we know the hero wins and beats the bad guy in the end. It's one of those cliches that's a cliche for a reason. Because we want the happy ending. We want the hero to win.
HOWEVER, all the action scenes in this movie are nothing more than a metaphor for the hero's dancing. That's it. When she's dancing, action scene. The action scene could be replaced with a fade transition to after the dancing. That's how meaningless it is. So the whole time an action scene was going I was just sitting there, waiting for it to end so we could get back to the real plot of the movie which is annoying because it's not anywhere near as interesting.
Anyway, our hero gets together with a few of the other girls and she puts her plan into motion. She dances, giving us the meaningless action scenes, which distracts everyone long enough to get X item required to escape.
The first is the map of the facility, which they make a copy of, only the club owner notices that the copier is still warm and that someone retacked the map back up on the wall.
Then they get the lighter which they will use to start a fire to get the doors open. Contrary to every other movie in existence, this is what really happens in emergency situations so people can get to safety.
The knife is in case they run into trouble, and lo and behold, the dude they try to get the knife from catches them and proceeds to stab one of the team of girls, making her dead. They throw her hysterical sister into a room that's little more than a closet who was one of the other would be escapees.
A short time later on the eve of the hero getting sold off, the owner gathers all the girls together, including what's left of the group who wants to leave. He reveals that one of the team of five snitched. Then, he shoots the chick that ended up taking the knife. Just shoots her in the head. Was pretty abrupt. He then explains that no one likes a snitch and shoots the one who told. Just as suddenly.
So, now the movie is finally getting good.
The owner shoos away the girls that weren't trying to escape and almost ***** our hero. Almost. She pulls the knife, stabs him in the shoulder, and takes the key. She gets the sister out of the closet and one fire later they're outside the building and the only thing standing between them and the gate... is the dude who came for our hero and his goons.
Now, let me reiterate something. She's known this other chick she's with for all of three days. Three. It's at this point she realizes the last thing is her. She explains to the other chick that it's up to her to distract the pricks by the gate. That it was never about her. The main character, no lie, tells the other girl, that this was HER story.
What?! Since when?!
She provides the distraction and the side character escapes. We then get cut back to the beginning of the movie at the nut house as she is on her way to be lobotomized and we get exposition told to us, explaining that she and a group of patients started a fire and stabbed an orderly, leading to the escape of a patient from a mental hospital. A. Mental. Hospital. Sorta puts that teary self sacrifice of the main character in a new light, don't it?
Well, the doctor performing the lobotomy does some checking and a psychiatrist does some more and they come to find out that the orderly who got stabbed has been taking bribes to make people disappear and even had sex with the lobotomized patients because he wasn't evil enough. He gets arrested. Hurray.
The escaped mental patient attempts to board a bus, but is stopped by a pair of cops at the door. The bus driver, played by the same old dude from the dance fantasies from before, vouches for the woman. She thanks him after the cops leave and he just tells her to take a seat in the back and rest finally in safety in a scene that was honestly quite touching but held back by the stupidity that came before it.
To summarize, it's a series of amazing, meaningless, imaginary action scenes framed by a boring, meaningless, imaginary plot and the REAL parts of the movie that actually happened in the opening and closing probably added up to about half an hour of a TWO HOUR movie, if that. The title of this movie could not be more appropriate.
Wow, just wow.
