Sucker Punched

Well, I admit it. I watched S.u.c.k.e.r P.u.n.c.h. Yes, Sucker Punch. Not that there is anything wrong watching it. Initially, I’ve never intended to watch it. But seeing that it was the only time slot suited for my hectic schecule, I just went for it.

So how’s the movie like and stuff? First of all, I love how they blend the concepts of mental-projected fantasy-action and real-time action. But the thing is—it gets too complicated. I mean, Sucker Punch is basically about this group of girls who try to escape the asylum by getting the things they need, like: map, lighter, knife, key, and the fifth is .. actually a mystery item that Babydoll (the mostly main character) has to figure out in the end. So in their attempt to escape, Babydoll would do her erotic dance to enthrall (or rather, distract) the clients while the other girls go and get the items they need undetected.

And when Babydoll dances, she’s mentally transported to a different world. She fantasizes that she’s involved in a battle with the so-called bad guys (who look like hideous villains in her fantasies) with her other girlfriends. She’s clad in a schoolgirl outfit with superhuman abilities (like immune to injuries even though she’s flipped many times here and there by the villains).

And the settings she’s in are reminiscent of the sci-fi fantasy world where medieval-like buildings and mythical creatures, such as dragons, exist. So in real-time, if her friends are working to retrieve a map, Babydoll (while in her dancing mode) would fantasize herself in a battle scene where she’s fighting to locate and obtain the map.

And so are the other items. Like if her friends conspire to retrieve the lighter, she would fantasize about fire-breathing dragons and retrieving a form of fire from her fantasies.

The thing about this whole movie is that I’d prefer it if focuses specifically on a genre, or filming mode. I mean, this movie would have been perfect if the whole movie is live-action fantasy, the plot focused on purely the battles and the fighting—and not switching from one element to another constantly. It kind of spoils the whole thing a little.

Yes, I think Sucker Punch would make a great movie if the directors or writers would just create a whole, unadulterated live-action fantasy. It would be like Lord of the Rings, and without the constant perspective switch of Frido Baggins’ fantasy. It’s all pure fantasy.

With Sucker Punch, it’s a little different. The combined elements of fantasy and thriller-like drama of escape just sorts of jumble the whole thing together.

I think that the movie should just focus on only one element—it’s either fantasy or just thriller drama. Choose one. I think that works much better.

Because when the fantasy part rolled in, I wished that the movie would perpetuate with the elements of fantasy until the end of the movie. I did feel a little cut off or disappointed when the fantasy mode is switched abruptly back to the present normal drama mode.

Yes, it would probably be a better movie in that sense. If the movie had a one-theme focus only.

Babydoll seems like the main character of the movie, but somehow, she claims that she’s not the main character, and she’s not supposed to finish the story. It’s supposed to be Sweet Pea’s story, who will escape of the asylum alive to live to tell her side of the tale. The rest of the girls ended up dead in their botched attempts to escape.

Babydoll makes the last sacrifice so Sweet Pea can taste her sweet freedom. She runs into the mob of bad men, so they would get distracted. That way, Sweet Pea can escape the asylum safe and sound.

And the ending of the movie shows Sweet Pea boarding a bus to her freedom.

And how did Babydoll end up in the asylum in the first place? Well, she’s been mistaken for causing the death of her younger sister, and people thought she was insane—so they put her in the asylum (and also due to her evil stepfather’s doing).

She really wasn’t insane in the first place to begin with.

But of course, after what she’d had through, she probably would have gone insane, and wanted to be insane in the end to put a cease to her suffering.

Overall, this movie wasn’t really that bad. Like I said, I’d have appreciated it more if it ran on a whole fantasy theme only.

It kind of sucker punched me.