I'm pretty much with you here. Amber and Blondie were just there to fill out the Five Man Band, really, and as cheap drama, though Amber also had the purpose of The Driver and was decent eye candy.
The fights were also too quick — or at least, not enough emotional setup to make us care. They were visually impressive, but the movie never took a moment to let you pause and feel the impact of anything (except the beginning and ending). A lot of stuff was too tightly ruled by the music-video nature.
I do hold out hope for a director's cut to be better.
It's well done, but too ambitious for its own good; it bit off more than it could chew in several different ways.
It also struck me that despite all the seeming fanservice, there was nothing in the way of Male Gaze shots and we never lingered on any of the characters long enough to really find them sexy. It's kind of surprising that it was so un-sexy a movie for me despite the outfits all the characters wore. Perhaps this was intentional, and meant to make a point?
A brighter future for a darker age.
Yeah, I feel like maybe there's a lot of stuff that was cut out, or Synder wanted to do more, but budget or time problems prevented him from doing it, the film seems...unfinished.
And the sexy issue, it's odd, but you got plenty of upskirt from Baby Doll, and Rocket's Girl Next Door Genki Girl-ness was pretty hot, imo.
"Whoa" Keanu ReevesLeave a Comment:
Good movie that could've been much more
I loved Sucker Punch, it was a fast paced film with great action, creative backdrops, a creative premise and some extremely emotional scenes. The use of music was fantastic and the villains were thoroughly disgusting.
Now onto the problems, after watching this movie, I asked myself a bunch of questions, and they all began one way, What If.
This film is full of could'ves and should'ves, the limited characterization, bizarre pacing, continuity problems and let down of a third act (I'm fine with the ending, but everything building up to it was flawed) could've been solved. This movie screams inexperience, which makes sense, but it felt like this was a rushed job, a good editing and storyboarding session was desperately needed.
Let me explain, SPOILERS AHOY!, many characters lack motivation and characterization, Baby Doll was okay, but Emily Browning can't carry a film. Rocket and Sweet Pea were fine. Now onto the main problem...Amber and Blondie, what use do they have in the story? I feel like they were thrown in to increase the body count and were killed because there was nothing to do with them, they had little interaction so I couldn't bring myself to care for them. All of these problems with characterization could've been solved by putting aside thirty minutes at the beginning of the story for the characters relationships to blossom and Baby Doll to persuade the other girls into helping her with Rockets help.
A thirty minute introduction before the action, combined with more time between the action, would've been another improvement, pacing people. Also make every fight should've gotten longer and more epic (anybody think they blew their budget early?). And seriously, what's the deal with no final fight? Whenever she got a Mac Guffin there's a fight! That's how it goes.
Another thing that would've helped SP would be some sort of recurring theme or motif through the dream fights. All of this would build suspense towards the final confrontation. A thread that ties all the dreams together. And they didn't use the juxtaposition of fantasy and reality nearly as well as they could have.
Beyond my bitching, this really is a great film, go watch it, but I'll always feel like it could've been much much more.
Maybe the directors cut will fix these problems.