This seemed like less of a movie and rather an excuse to have 4 kick ass action sequences of roughly ten minutes each. That leaves about an hour of screen time to set up those individual excuses and make an attempt to give some arc, connection and coherence to the story. The first 12 minutes are the set-up that ostensibly occurs in the "real world" (if there is even such a thing in this story) and then another 6 minute scene near the end that is set there as well. The remaining 40-odd minutes take place in what seems to be a first-layer fantasy world where the limited character and plot development take place.
The inter-relationship among the three layers of reality is somewhat vague and, in the end, unsatisfying. There is a line between creating a thought-provoking story that gives rise to interesting and meaningful questions, and simply being as confusing as hell to mimick that in an otherwise transparent endeavour. People can go to great, twisted lengths to explain away ambiguities, omissions and inconsistencies here and there, but I got the feeling that the creator actually didn't know but went with it anyways.
The disconnect between the action scenes happening each in their own little world, and the first layer fantasy and the "real" world makes it hard to create much suspense or fear that the protagonists are actually in harm's way. Sure, the action sequences are well done, but the characters seem invincible and in any event, with one exception that occurs far to late, the threat of death in an action sequence doesn't compel the viewer to think that the other-world consequences are much to worry about, so there isn't much audience tension.
All of this doesn't make Sucker Punch a bad movie, just mediocre but with fantastic special effects. Many action movies are like this in that they are just a reason to blow some shit up, and the rest is filler. I would still recommend that people take the opportunity to watch it if they want to see cool, mixed-genre fight scenes and either a)they like to spend hours trying to think of how to make what they just saw make sense or b) they simply accept the fact that the rest is crap. And the "you're the sexist; no YOU'RE the sexist" schtick that the creator gets into is, at best, merely too clever by half and not worth discussing.
Sucker Punch
This seemed like less of a movie and rather an excuse to have 4 kick ass action sequences of roughly ten minutes each. That leaves about an hour of screen time to set up those individual excuses and make an attempt to give some arc, connection and coherence to the story. The first 12 minutes are the set-up that ostensibly occurs in the "real world" (if there is even such a thing in this story) and then another 6 minute scene near the end that is set there as well. The remaining 40-odd minutes take place in what seems to be a first-layer fantasy world where the limited character and plot development take place.
The inter-relationship among the three layers of reality is somewhat vague and, in the end, unsatisfying. There is a line between creating a thought-provoking story that gives rise to interesting and meaningful questions, and simply being as confusing as hell to mimick that in an otherwise transparent endeavour. People can go to great, twisted lengths to explain away ambiguities, omissions and inconsistencies here and there, but I got the feeling that the creator actually didn't know but went with it anyways.
The disconnect between the action scenes happening each in their own little world, and the first layer fantasy and the "real" world makes it hard to create much suspense or fear that the protagonists are actually in harm's way. Sure, the action sequences are well done, but the characters seem invincible and in any event, with one exception that occurs far to late, the threat of death in an action sequence doesn't compel the viewer to think that the other-world consequences are much to worry about, so there isn't much audience tension.
All of this doesn't make Sucker Punch a bad movie, just mediocre but with fantastic special effects. Many action movies are like this in that they are just a reason to blow some shit up, and the rest is filler. I would still recommend that people take the opportunity to watch it if they want to see cool, mixed-genre fight scenes and either a)they like to spend hours trying to think of how to make what they just saw make sense or b) they simply accept the fact that the rest is crap. And the "you're the sexist; no YOU'RE the sexist" schtick that the creator gets into is, at best, merely too clever by half and not worth discussing.