Sucker Punch

I must have been in seventh grade in middle school when I first saw The Matrix. I remember where I watched it for sure, though: I watched it late one Saturday night with my older brothers in the living room. Back then, I either didn’t understand or didn’t care about all the philosophical mumbo jumbo presented in the movie. I mean, I got the basic gist of it, but I just thought the action was awesome. I remember I wanted everything to be like The Matrix. I would even fight my younger brother a là The Matrix. Now, after re-watching it, I can appreciate the philosophy, the story, and Keanu Reeves’ God-awful lines on a whole other level.

I didn’t bother watching the The Matrix sequels, but I did openly love Christopher Nolan’s film Inception. I was such an ardent fan of it that when hecklers kept on calling it a The Matrix rip-off, I would become adamant and defend it to the death…sort of. I would think, “They’re completely different!” I still think they are, but I have calmed down enough to at least acknowledge certain similarities.

It’s because of my acknowledging those similarities that I was highly anticipating Zack Snyder’s latest action flick, Sucker Punch. Well, that, and the fact that I saw a trailer of it with the Silversun Pickups’ song “Panic Switch” in it, and I thought it looked sick (who isn’t biased anymore?). Naturally, I went on premiere day with my younger brother. I knew we would have a different experience of the movie, but I didn’t think it was as drastic as it was.

First off, it was premiere day, and we went on Friday night to our regular theater. Normally, new movies would fill up, especially on a Friday night. This was not the case with Sucker Punch. There were maybe fifty people spread out through the auditorium. Second, I screwed myself over because I looked at Wikipedia to see what the critical reception was, and it said, and I quote, “mainly negative.” So I was a little disheartened before the movie started. Lastly, in the middle of the movie, my younger brother started laughing at what he said was, “The most ridiculous movie ever.”

I admit, Sucker Punch was not the greatest movie ever. Not by a long shot. I will even admit that it isn’t Zack Snyder’s best film…that award is held by 300, followed very, very closely by Watchmen, then the Dawn of the Dead remake, then Sucker Punch, and then finally Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. It is not a good movie, but it also is not a bad one. In fact, it has merit.

The general storyline is about this girl who winds up in an insane asylum in Vermont, and is scheduled to be lobotomized by the end of the week. One of the doctors uses a different way of treating the girls while at the same time runs a show with the inmates. The doctor tries to use music and dancing to help treat the girls. For some reason, the protagonist has this ability to put anyone watching her dance into a dazed state, and she enters this other dimension where she has all sorts of crazy fighting skills. She learns from a friend in one of these dances that she can escape the asylum if she gets a certain number of items. So she teams up with a few other inmates and they go through multiple dance sequences and manage to get the items necessary. Yet one item is missing, and it is the most valuable one of all: a sacrifice that the protagonist has to make so that escape is possible.

This is the storyline, but the imagery and visuals presented in the movie are classic Snyder motifs: slow motion action scenes, lots and lots of violence, and a plot that doesn’t seem feasible when presented in physical form, but he somehow makes it work. It really does feel like watching a videogame, and most of the time, watching videogames sucks. Videogames are meant to be played. Yet Sucker Punch is a rare instance where I would rather take the back seat and just enjoy the ride.

Sucker Punch is out now online and physically in stores.

REVIEW RATING:

★★★★★