Sucker Punch
“Sweet dreams are made of these” pretty much gives an insight into Zack Snyder’s inner-mind theatre for Sucker Punch. Although, whether his dreams are in any way sweet is a matter of taste. But nothing changes the fact that the idea and story for Sucker Punch can only be formed from a psychotic dream-state. And in this case, it happened to be Snyder’s own dark, sporadic doing.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The musing about this movie really started one day when I had the fortunate luck of snagging fellow Ravenclaws Maya Winters and Prof. Ulol Kimil into watching the movie with me. Now, as far as I was concerned, all I knew about Sucker Punch was that it was directed by the same guy who did 300 and Watchmen (both of which have utterly stunning art direction, might I add). I read up a little bit on the plot and figured it would be a dark action-fantasy. Which, true enough, is how the movie began. Then the giant samurai-slash-Avatar: The Last Airbender-esque action sequences appeared, the three of us blinked a few times, yelling out varying expletives and degrees of “Wait. Whut?” Our brains only further got muddled when suddenly, 10 minutes after, the zombie-steampunk-German army arrived as part of the plot. Truly, the phrase “everything but the kitchen sink” would be put to perfect use to describe this movie—though I suppose since Sucker Punch also has a kitchen sink...well, yeah.
So what is Sucker Punch really about? Maya, Ulol, and I tried to describe it in five words or less. We came up with this: Hotties on crack and acid.
The story starts off with the character of Babydoll (Emily Browning), who is sent to a girls’ mental asylum as an attempted cover-up by her wicked stepfather. In order to further keep the secrets of the death of Babydoll’s younger sister, the stepfather strikes a deal with an asylum warden, who plans to incapacitate Babydoll’s mind. Seconds before her scheduled lobotomy, Babydoll retreats into a fantastical rendering of the asylum (which has now become a home for erm, rather shady business). That’s where the actual movie story begins.
The rest of Sucker Punch can’t really be summarized, because things go down—and up and sideways into—the rabbit hole so quickly afterwards. It is literally a fantasized version of Babydoll’s last five days in the asylum, and the movie’s storytelling went from pseudo-feudal Japan (swords and samurais) to speculative historical fiction (a combination of World War I, the Zombie Apocalypse, and the added bonus of steampunk) to high fantasy (Lord of the Rings-type of creatures) to science fiction (automatons, high-tech trains, metropolises, and scenic views of space). It was the sort of story where even I had to sit down and utter “I cannot” a few times before my brain could keep up with the twists.
Needless to say, we all thoroughly enjoyed Sucker Punch for what it was: Hotties on crack and acid. Maya certainly enjoyed the random, action-packed sequences. Ulol drooled all over the hotties. And I absolutely died laughing at how well the music matched the general ambiance of the scenes. Not to mention the fact that the fantastically Asian Amber (Jamie Chung) had the absolute best role in the movie, driving all the cool vehicles, as it were.
But enough of my babble. Here are just some of the highlight quotes as we watched the movie (cleaned up in a G-rated style, of course):
On the weapons and the action
Maya: “COMPUTER GAME TIME.”
Cassie: “MISSILE. LAUNCHER. MACHINE GUNS. LOOOOOOOOOOOL.”
Maya: “Ohhh airships for [Cassie] and her happy steampunk worlds.”
Ulol: “And it is WWI, not II.”
Cassie: “Oh, KAISERS.”
Cassie: “LOL WHAT. LOLOL. STEAM POWER. AND CLOCKWORKS.”
* Maya CANNOT
* Cassie DIES
Ulol: “loooooooooooool.”
On the people
Maya: “Yeah that obviously was one HELL of a dance.”
Cassie: “It WAS a heck of a dance.”
Ulol: “She looks so hooooooooooooooooot.”
Cassie: “LOL NAZIS.”
Maya: “It’s just……insane. INSANE.”
Ulol: “Acid, told ya. Pure acid.”
Cassie: “Dude, I’m telling you, the Asian has the best job ever.”
Maya: “The Asian gets the COOLEST BITS STILL.”
On the music
Cassie: “The music…just…XDDDDD.”
Maya: “……..the music REALLY JUST.”
Ulol: “QUEEN.”
Maya: “ACID TRIP #99 COMING UP XD.”
Cassie: “Here comes music-crack #infinity XD.”
On the movie overall
Maya: “I still maintain [Cassie] wrote a movie and didn’t tell us, [Ulol].”
Cassie: “LOL. Pity I’m not cashing in on this.”
Maya: “This movie is just…XD.”
Maya: “I have never seen that much crack in a movie.”
And probably the best conversation of the bit:
(Alera[DEADED] = Maya, LOLOL = Cassie, WHUT = Ulol)
Alera[DEADED]: "pick 5 adjectives to describe this movie" >_____>
Alera[DEADED]: or just 5 words
WHUT: acid
LOLOL: acid
LOLOL: crack
WHUT: acid
WHUT: acid
WHUT: acid
WHUT: acid
LOLOL: crack
LOLOL: XD
Alera[DEADED]: XD
WHUT: there
LOLOL: acid trip, crack, more crack, DAMN
LOLOL: oh, wait
LOLOL: one extra
LOLOL: -trip
LOLOL: >_>
WHUT: lol
WHUT: oh
WHUT: hotties
LOLOL: lol!
WHUT: don0t forget hotties
LOLOL: hotties on crack and acid
LOLOL: there's your five words
WHUT: yaaaaaaaaah
