The critical appraisal seems to be negative. At the same time, I definitely think I'm the target demographic for this particular picnic. Might see it this evening with my brother and a friend. If so, I will attempt my own critical appraisal. I was able to enjoy 300 and Watchmen, despite their shortcomings, so I have hope that it will provide an entertaining experience. Let's just pray that it doesn't end up being like Transformers 2.
I've been hearing it's pretty bad, at least story wise. Of course the special effects are going to be great but just tits and special effects alone don't make a good movie for me.
I will be checking this out tonight, going be dragging some friends kicking and screaming because they live by rotten tomatoes' reviews, but I have been waiting to see this for so long nothing will stop me! XD
i dont know what the film will be like, but I can recomend the art book....its pretty good, fair mix of enviro and character stuffs too look at....very pretty
I thought it was ok, the problem with this film for me was that it was a constant 10 in the crazy action scale. At one point it got too much (train scene for those who've watched it) that it just turned into noise. My brain literally shut off and the whole thing became uninteresting. I couldn't even treat it as one of those popcorn flicks because of how much is happening.
I preferred 300's pacing to this one, but still it was an interesting concept And the color grading was amazing.
SPOILERS BELOW!
Did anyone feel that having the action scenes being a figment of her imagination ruin the danger factor? Even the last scene, they had to cut to real life to show what's happening..if they hadn't I probably wouldn't have cared. Huge dragons and samurai's really don't mean shit when you know all she's doing is some sexy dance :P
good to hear that. The studio i'm at did the Samurai sequences, it's abit of a downer that it's getting low scores. I even got a smidge of work in it at the end of the movie lol.
Just got back from seeing it, and WOW, the visuals were amazing. The script holds it back a little but I really think it shouldn't have been rated SO low. I am glad I bought a ticket and saw it and give kudos to all the people who worked on the effects.
Okay...wow. That was...a LOT darker than I was expecting. Seriously, it went to some REALLY dark places. I feel entirely confident in saying that it was darker and more unsettling than either 300 or Watchmen.
The two friends that I went to see it with loathed it. I was willing to be more generous. At the same time, there were some pretty glaring failings. I would say that the biggest offense was probably the pacing. An unnecessarily complex premise was number two. Third place goes to the overly verbose script which was badly in need of further editing and trimming. And the casting/acting is last on my personal list of grievances. The leading ladies were fairly wooden in their delivery. The primary protagonist in particular only seemed to have one facial expression. I know they were primarily meant as eye-candy, but a bit more range would have contributed significantly.
Thematically, I thought the movie was actually quite strong. And there were a few moments where the writing and acting actually worked pretty well. I thought that the primary male antagonist did a great job, and the bit part of the doctor called in for "special duty" was one of the most notable performances of the film. If nothing else, the movie proves that Zack Snyder is coming up with an engaging story. But I can already see that most people won't approve of this particular outing. The narrative they're spinning is just really, really dark. (I can't believe this movie wasn't rated R)
The action sequences are beautiful, and some of them are very well choreographed. Special congratulations are in order for RWolf, as the "samurai" sequence he worked on was easily my favorite of the entire movie. The drawback of the action sequences is that they are so separate from the rest of the film. All of the drama and story progression of the film happens outside of the action sequences, thoroughly marginalizing their significance to the plot. At times the audience is actually eager to see the action sequences end, just so they can get back to the meat of what's going on. This is where most of the movie's pacing issues come up. The action scenes interrupt the story without actively adding to it. They could have been shortened considerably without losing their "punch."
The movie also suffers from too much dialog and exposition. Oddly enough, the writers didn't give the audience enough credit. If they had edited down the lines considerably, and made more effective use of stillness and silence in key scenes, they could have made a more powerful emotional statement.
I would be interested to see a much more heavily edited cut of this film, one with the intention of telling the story more tersely.
Okay...wow. That was...a LOT darker than I was expecting. Seriously, it went to some REALLY dark places. I feel entirely confident in saying that it was darker and more unsettling than either 300 or Watchmen.
yeah, figured it'd be dark.
...and I recall hearing how many millions(something like 14) they were gonna be given to make it not R/nc-17, lol.
I kinda liked it, but I feel like the whole "dream within a dream", 3 levels of reality gimmick is getting old now.
I love how the Matrix (and Animatrix) movies clearly state their rules, and every layer makes sense. Stuff like Dark City works very well too.
Here it felt quite disconnected - and even tho the actions scenes were too busy at times, they were all I cared for really. I'd be happy with a shorter version of the movie showing the dream action scenes only!
The level2 cabaret lacked of some sort of fantasy and exuberance in my opinion. It was a little bit too real, so to speak ? It would have been nice if the real world level1 diseases of the girls were showing up more in level2 and 3. Or maybe they are all sane girls, trapped there for the same reason as the main girl ? It doesn't make much sense... It would have been cool for one to be blind in the real world, but having super sharp third eye vision in the dream world, for instance.
Also I was hoping for the action scenes to show some sort of heroic journey progression kind of thing - but instead it felt like a reboot every time. Again, the Samurai fight was great as it felt like the starting point of something bound to be bigger - but later on it kinda failed at keeping this momentum. I was hoping for the main girl to become more and more powerful, like in Akira or StarWars for instance. I feel like the short hair chick was really carrying the movie, as she is the one showing conflict and progression. Asian chick was badass too, Blondie was hot, then the 2 main ones came last, I think.
I thought the movie was great. There was a great plot, beautiful girls fighting Samurai with Miniguns, German Zombies, Robots, and Dragons accommodated by a great soundtrack. Freakin awesome.
It was more like a confused what am I doing here look. She has that 90% of the time, even when she was slaying shit. Quite a shame too, I thought she was a good actor in Unfortunate Events.
This movie sucked, It made no sense, ever, it was so melodramatic and over acted all time, and then it kept trying to be esoteric just for the sake of being esoteric. Then it started making no sense again. All Zack Snyder did was steal design elements from LOTR, GITS, Jin Roh, WW2, and butt fuck them into a movie with a terrible story and not enough focus on the action. And at the end it still didn't make any sense.
You forgot to mention character development, in the end I didn't care if anyone escaped or died.. I just wanted my money back.
I also didn't like it and wish they just kept the action sequences and made it a straight out action movie. The last half hour or so was needlessly dark and I didn't like the ending at all, although I "get it".
I don't understand why a brothel setting was chosen for Babydoll's way of coping the asylum. I think only done to try to up the sex factor, which was not sexy at all. And Babydoll's hypnotic dance was a joke, the little amount of what you see is her starting to awkwardly sway around and I could barely stop myself from laughing.
Lastly, I find it very odd that if this is taking place inside a mental asylum, why are all the patients sane? None of the main girls, or even the extra's exhibited any sign of dementia, other than a little scuffle at the beginning.
I'm convinced the old man just wanted to rape sweat pea all along and that was the whole set up for everything that happened.
This actually makes prefect sense since literally all the other male characters are rapists, except for the doctor, who just rapes brains with an icepick.
There seem to be a lot of these statuses going around on facebook... This is one from a friend of mine.
"DO NOT see Sucker Punch unless you are purely interested in seeing overly explosive CG with horrible plot and a nonsensical ending that only confirms the awful directing. If you wish to see every fantasy movie rolled up and butchered into a dreamland of idiocy be my guest. Personally, go and watch inception again as this movie is a failed version of it with a lot of boob action.''
I haven't seen the movie yet... but there were probably about 4 other statuses like this through facebook.
There seem to be a lot of these statuses going around on facebook... This is one from a friend of mine.
"DO NOT see Sucker Punch unless you are purely interested in seeing overly explosive CG with horrible plot and a nonsensical ending that only confirms the awful directing. If you wish to see every fantasy movie rolled up and butchered into a dreamland of idiocy be my guest. Personally, go and watch inception again as this movie is a failed version of it with a lot of boob action.''
I haven't seen the movie yet... but there were probably about 4 other statuses like this through facebook.
Sounds like everyones a critic and forget what entertainment is.
Inception is on a whole different level than Suckerpunch, pun intended. I think it's more trying to be like Pan's Labyrinth but without the awesome.
and how is it her story?
This is how I reason why it's Sweet Pea's story, it was setup right in the beginning:
In the very beginning the voice over is actually Sweet Pea, and same for the ending. She says something like how you never know when an angel will come and rescue you. That angel is Babydoll, which proves true with the plan and sacrificing herself for Sweet Pea at the end
Clearly you only understand entertainment if you like bad rehashes of action scenes you have seen done better elsewhere.
en·ter·tain·ment
[en-ter-teyn-muhnt]
-something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, especially a performance of some kind
Clearly I do, because I don't have an antagonistic over-critical mind when it comes to what I view is entertainment. Of course everything is inspired or copied elsewhere.
Anyone who spent money to watch Suckerpunch (especially a Zack Snyder film) expecting a fucking original epic plot with deep emotional character development ala Saving Private Ryan will get a good guffaw and scoff from me, its like me wanting to watch Full Metal Jacket as a documentary.
I came to watch Suckerpunch for 3 reasons.
1. Girls with Guns
2. Awesome explosions and gibbed baddies
3. And great music.
I watched Suckerpunch expecting tits ass and explosions and still didn't come out entertained. The bad parts just got in the way of what they're trying to sell.
If one's poops entertained them and were "something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, especially a performance of some kind" to that person, then would poops clearly be entertainment? I mean, maybe everyone else just has antagonistic minds when it comes to viewing poops?
Pft, You clearly don't understand entertainment sir, I scoff at you, anyone who derives pleasure or amusement from badly directed blurry action scenes featuring girls in leotards and CG robots has only a cro-magnon level of intellect, why not go masturbate to some anime porn, it would be cheaper and quicker and with all the same factors.
I hope you realize I'm joking here, and my point is this, you can enjoy whatever you like, that's your opinion, but it doesn't invalidate anybody else's. Just because it was "Entertainment" incarnate for you doesn't mean it was for everyone else.
And why can't we be critical of this movie? Zack Snyder has only ever adapted movies from renown comics, and sure as a director of action he's succeeded, but this is his first attempt at a movie that he also wrote, it's entirely his own story, and in that regards, and I think we can all agree, he failed. So I feel entirely justified in being critical of this. Especially considered how much poor story exposition there was.
I came to this flick for exactly the same three reasons as you sir, but this movie failed to provide them in a quantity that I would have left happy with, Not enough of the action scenes, and the ones that were there were short and blurry, The music was shitty, don't get me wrong I love all the songs he uses on their own, but lyrical music doesn't fit in a flick like this, it just feels so cheese-ball. Especially when you use songs that literally describe exactly how the character is feeling, he hits the audience of the head with it, and it's just insulting, I mean come on "Where is my mind" by The Pixies played when she goes to the mental asylum.
I still scoff & guffaw at any haters of this movie, haters will be haters
My cro-magnon level of intelect makes watching movies that much more entertaining In the end, i've got my moneys worth!
PS: My definition of entertainment does not invalidate anyone elses, just vastly superior joking of course.
I think the first 30 minutes were the most well done.
I found it entertaining, like a 2 hour long music video. Plot didn't have any surprises and the metaphors were spoon fed to you, but I certainly don't think it was as bad as the angry mob thinks
The real irony of this film is that Zack Snyder's first original story would have been better handled by a different director. The idea of a mental patient "escaping" from her grim reality through fantastical sojourns could have made for a good movie. But Mr. Snyder created too much of a schism between the two "realities." And just to screw things up more, he threw in a third "reality" that was unnecessary and confusing. With proper editing, and a bit more thought and restraint, this film could have been improved immensely.
My advice would have been to cut out the "bordello" entirely. Stick to the asylum, with the main character escaping to her little fantasy/empowerment world whenever her reality starts to get too grim. I would also have lost the "fetch quest" in preparation for escape. They could have worked that into the story without spelling it out ahead of time, or beating the audience over the head with it. A dream world requires no clear objectives. They could have had the main character "collecting" what she needed without ever saying a word.
At the end, I couldn't help felling that the movie was a wasted opportunity. Good ideas that could have coalesced into a meaningful film with a bit more care and restraint. But what they ended up with was a loud mess.
I am 100% with Will on this. I went into the movie looking for entertainment. And left very very entertain. Yes, some of the acting got cheesy. Yes the plot was...well.. insanely absurd. But The action was a blast. The Costumes were great. And some of the set pieces were pretty rad. haters gonna hate.
100% have to agree with Will on this also. You guys are all a bunch of haters.
Just saw this with a buddy of mine and was totally entertained and was defiantly worth my money too see it. Dont regret it at all. I was thoroughly satisfied with all the visuals of this movie on so, so many levels
Story, a little insane, and super dark near the end, but wasn't an atrocity or even bad for that matter. Some parts were a little weird, and strange to follow, along with some stuff that was unnecessary but still cool as shit. Lets just say this, the story wasn't as bad as most video games.
Hot chicks, guns, sexy outfits, crazy mash up action that you would never get otherwise, stunning CG, robots, samurai, nazi clock work zombies, dragons, orcs, knights, mini skirts, hot chicks and did I mention hot chicks?
Yeah this movie seemed to take everything a nerdy/gamer guys love and put it in 2 hours of entertainment.
Lets just say this, the story wasn't as bad as most video games.
That's for sure..
Honestly though, the movie wasn't that bad. I think what a lot of people here are bummed about is that the movie could've been soo much better if they tweaked a few things.
idk I wanna see it cause of baby doll idc if it sucks i'd be watching her the whole time anyways
I would question the value of going to a film JUST for the opportunity to oggle a single lady. Even if we take your motivation as a given, I still wouldn't recommend this particular movie. The leading lady does look pretty good in her school girl uniform. But she only wears it during the action sequences. And these are often so hectic and bombastic that there isn't much chance to appreciate the ladies that they involve. Even though these sequences have a certain fetishistic quality, the costumes aren't that revealing. You see more skin at the beach, or the pool.
And don't even get me started about all the sequences outside of the action scenes. The way the girls look in those will actively turn you off. Looking back on the whole experience, I can honestly say that I didn't find any part of that movie to be "hot."
Replies
I preferred 300's pacing to this one, but still it was an interesting concept
SPOILERS BELOW!
cool to hear you worked on it as well Rwolf.
I spent almost 2 months working on the katana babydoll has.
(as well as 28 extra stunt swords)
The two friends that I went to see it with loathed it. I was willing to be more generous. At the same time, there were some pretty glaring failings. I would say that the biggest offense was probably the pacing. An unnecessarily complex premise was number two. Third place goes to the overly verbose script which was badly in need of further editing and trimming. And the casting/acting is last on my personal list of grievances. The leading ladies were fairly wooden in their delivery. The primary protagonist in particular only seemed to have one facial expression. I know they were primarily meant as eye-candy, but a bit more range would have contributed significantly.
Thematically, I thought the movie was actually quite strong. And there were a few moments where the writing and acting actually worked pretty well. I thought that the primary male antagonist did a great job, and the bit part of the doctor called in for "special duty" was one of the most notable performances of the film. If nothing else, the movie proves that Zack Snyder is coming up with an engaging story. But I can already see that most people won't approve of this particular outing. The narrative they're spinning is just really, really dark. (I can't believe this movie wasn't rated R)
The action sequences are beautiful, and some of them are very well choreographed. Special congratulations are in order for RWolf, as the "samurai" sequence he worked on was easily my favorite of the entire movie. The drawback of the action sequences is that they are so separate from the rest of the film. All of the drama and story progression of the film happens outside of the action sequences, thoroughly marginalizing their significance to the plot. At times the audience is actually eager to see the action sequences end, just so they can get back to the meat of what's going on. This is where most of the movie's pacing issues come up. The action scenes interrupt the story without actively adding to it. They could have been shortened considerably without losing their "punch."
The movie also suffers from too much dialog and exposition. Oddly enough, the writers didn't give the audience enough credit. If they had edited down the lines considerably, and made more effective use of stillness and silence in key scenes, they could have made a more powerful emotional statement.
I would be interested to see a much more heavily edited cut of this film, one with the intention of telling the story more tersely.
yeah, figured it'd be dark.
...and I recall hearing how many millions(something like 14) they were gonna be given to make it not R/nc-17, lol.
I kinda liked it, but I feel like the whole "dream within a dream", 3 levels of reality gimmick is getting old now.
I love how the Matrix (and Animatrix) movies clearly state their rules, and every layer makes sense. Stuff like Dark City works very well too.
Here it felt quite disconnected - and even tho the actions scenes were too busy at times, they were all I cared for really. I'd be happy with a shorter version of the movie showing the dream action scenes only!
Also I was hoping for the action scenes to show some sort of heroic journey progression kind of thing - but instead it felt like a reboot every time. Again, the Samurai fight was great as it felt like the starting point of something bound to be bigger - but later on it kinda failed at keeping this momentum. I was hoping for the main girl to become more and more powerful, like in Akira or StarWars for instance. I feel like the short hair chick was really carrying the movie, as she is the one showing conflict and progression. Asian chick was badass too, Blondie was hot, then the 2 main ones came last, I think.
The
if it's an "innocent sexy yet ready to kick ass" look i can live with it
You forgot to mention character development, in the end I didn't care if anyone escaped or died.. I just wanted my money back.
I don't understand why a brothel setting was chosen for Babydoll's way of coping the asylum. I think only done to try to up the sex factor, which was not sexy at all. And Babydoll's hypnotic dance was a joke, the little amount of what you see is her starting to awkwardly sway around and I could barely stop myself from laughing.
Lastly, I find it very odd that if this is taking place inside a mental asylum, why are all the patients sane? None of the main girls, or even the extra's exhibited any sign of dementia, other than a little scuffle at the beginning.
Very disapointed!
"DO NOT see Sucker Punch unless you are purely interested in seeing overly explosive CG with horrible plot and a nonsensical ending that only confirms the awful directing. If you wish to see every fantasy movie rolled up and butchered into a dreamland of idiocy be my guest. Personally, go and watch inception again as this movie is a failed version of it with a lot of boob action.''
I haven't seen the movie yet... but there were probably about 4 other statuses like this through facebook.
Sounds like everyones a critic and forget what entertainment is.
This is how I reason why it's Sweet Pea's story, it was setup right in the beginning:
Or ... Bloody hell, imagine if THIS was the case ... people are entertained by different things?
Clearly you only understand entertainment if you like bad rehashes of action scenes you have seen done better elsewhere.
en·ter·tain·ment
[en-ter-teyn-muhnt]
-something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, especially a performance of some kind
Clearly I do, because I don't have an antagonistic over-critical mind when it comes to what I view is entertainment. Of course everything is inspired or copied elsewhere.
Anyone who spent money to watch Suckerpunch (especially a Zack Snyder film) expecting a fucking original epic plot with deep emotional character development ala Saving Private Ryan will get a good guffaw and scoff from me, its like me wanting to watch Full Metal Jacket as a documentary.
I came to watch Suckerpunch for 3 reasons.
1. Girls with Guns
2. Awesome explosions and gibbed baddies
3. And great music.
I was pretty fucking entertained.
Everyone is entertained by different things.
I still scoff & guffaw at any haters of this movie, haters will be haters
My cro-magnon level of intelect makes watching movies that much more entertaining
PS: My definition of entertainment does not invalidate anyone elses, just vastly superior
I think the first 30 minutes were the most well done.
I found it entertaining, like a 2 hour long music video. Plot didn't have any surprises and the metaphors were spoon fed to you, but I certainly don't think it was as bad as the angry mob thinks
My advice would have been to cut out the "bordello" entirely. Stick to the asylum, with the main character escaping to her little fantasy/empowerment world whenever her reality starts to get too grim. I would also have lost the "fetch quest" in preparation for escape. They could have worked that into the story without spelling it out ahead of time, or beating the audience over the head with it. A dream world requires no clear objectives. They could have had the main character "collecting" what she needed without ever saying a word.
At the end, I couldn't help felling that the movie was a wasted opportunity. Good ideas that could have coalesced into a meaningful film with a bit more care and restraint. But what they ended up with was a loud mess.
the book also sucks, save your money on that and buy a nice steak : ]
Was very entertaining, but I felt the action sequences didn't really have a meaning/reason for being there.
I mean, why
It seems that if you were to take out all of the action sequences, you wouldn't be missing anything from the film.
Anyways, I was entertained, but I most likely wont be revisiting this movie.
Just saw this with a buddy of mine and was totally entertained and was defiantly worth my money too see it. Dont regret it at all. I was thoroughly satisfied with all the visuals of this movie on so, so many levels
Story, a little insane, and super dark near the end, but wasn't an atrocity or even bad for that matter. Some parts were a little weird, and strange to follow, along with some stuff that was unnecessary but still cool as shit. Lets just say this, the story wasn't as bad as most video games.
Hot chicks, guns, sexy outfits, crazy mash up action that you would never get otherwise, stunning CG, robots, samurai, nazi clock work zombies, dragons, orcs, knights, mini skirts, hot chicks and did I mention hot chicks?
Yeah this movie seemed to take everything a nerdy/gamer guys love and put it in 2 hours of entertainment.
Haters gona hate.
That's for sure..
Honestly though, the movie wasn't that bad. I think what a lot of people here are bummed about is that the movie could've been soo much better if they tweaked a few things.
gurgling mongs gonna like any old shit
I would question the value of going to a film JUST for the opportunity to oggle a single lady. Even if we take your motivation as a given, I still wouldn't recommend this particular movie. The leading lady does look pretty good in her school girl uniform. But she only wears it during the action sequences. And these are often so hectic and bombastic that there isn't much chance to appreciate the ladies that they involve. Even though these sequences have a certain fetishistic quality, the costumes aren't that revealing. You see more skin at the beach, or the pool.
And don't even get me started about all the sequences outside of the action scenes. The way the girls look in those will actively turn you off. Looking back on the whole experience, I can honestly say that I didn't find any part of that movie to be "hot."