A young girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather retreats to an alternative reality as a coping strategy and envisions a plan to help her escape.A young girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather retreats to an alternative reality as a coping strategy and envisions a plan to help her escape.A young girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather retreats to an alternative reality as a coping strategy and envisions a plan to help her escape.
- Awards
- 1 win & 11 nominations total
- Mayor
- (as AC Peterson)
- …
- Babydoll's Mother
- (as Kelora Clingwell)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJena Malone was so upset by the film's poor reception that she nearly quit acting.
- GoofsIn the dressing room when Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Blondie talk about not helping Babydoll, their movements don't match their mirror images; doubles are being used so the camera can move behind them without being reflected. - NOTE This is not a revealing mistake. In that scene, those mirrors are attached to the wall. There's no physical way the camera could have rotated around those mirrors. The director is doing this to alert the viewer they are inside another reality (baby dolls)
- Quotes
Sweet Pea: And finally this question, the mystery of whose story it will be. Of who draws the curtain. Who is it that chooses our steps in the dance? Who drives us mad? Lashes us with whips and crowns us with victory when we survive the impossible? Who is it, that does all of these things?
Sweet Pea: Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us, and at the same time sings that we will never die? Who teaches us what's real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us? And who holds the key that can set us free... It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!
- Crazy creditsThe Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures logos appear on a stage curtain, with the curtain rising to reveal each logo. A brief narrative precedes the Warner Bros logo appearing.
- Alternate versionsThere is an extended cut that is 18 minutes longer than the theatrical cut only available on Blu-ray.
- SoundtracksSweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Written by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart (as David Stewart)
Produced by Marius De Vries and Tyler Bates
Performed by Emily Browning
The problem is that, despite setting up these themes, the film does nothing with them – nothing at all. The dual fantasy sequences do not connect to any of the ideas or possible themes but rather represent an action sequence in the place of a (often mundane) aspect of the girl's plan to escape the burlesque house (which itself is a fantasy version of the mental institution). So for example when Babydoll dances to distract the mayor to allow the others to pickpocket a cigarette lighter , we cut away to a sequence of the girls raiding a castle to kill a dragon and steal the crystals that make it breathe fire. It might as well be a different film in these action sequences, and indeed they are – but the problem is that these sequences seem to be the film that Snyder wanted to make.
In fairness these massively dumb action sequences are full of style and presentation with impressive effects. They work for what they are and, even though the slow-mo, use of music and overall design is derivative, it does still provide plenty of style. But they aren't connected to anything in the film and this means that they have the same effect as they do in the trailer – "oh, that's fancy" but nothing more. There is no heart to them and as such these parts of the film are nothing more than another blockbuster with loads of effects but nothing else.
The lack of anything else is what kills the film because by the halfway point the empty noise becomes nothing more than noise. It is not even that it fails to make something of the ideas, characters and story – it is that it simply has no desire to do anything with them – like it is happy to be nothing. This annoyed me and it gets worse as the ending of the film attempts to suddenly have a darkness, to have a heart – it is too little too late and it doesn't work. In the absence of ideas to interest the viewer, one is left to think about other things. The exploitative fetishism of school-girl outfits, guns, sexuality and violence is one such thing I thought about – particularly since it was in a film whose final lines of dialogue appear to lift up the women characters. The sexual costumes and imagery do nothing of the sort but there is not some underlying misogyny as some have claimed – it is simply another part of Synder making his film as emptily commercial as possible, and sexy young women being sexy sells – just as gun porn and special effects sell. The cast match this as well – occasionally they look like they could have delivered more but ultimately they are little more than sexual effects. Browning, Cornish and Malone have a bit of heart to them but Hudgens and Chung are just flesh (not that I minded too much). This is not a film that cares about its cast – and the audience won't either.
Sucker Punch is not as awful as you have heard – it is too expensive and stylish for that. No, it is just poor because it simply does nothing other than empty, heartless style that is noisy and pointless. The ideas and themes go nowhere and the film has no interest in them or the characters. All that matters is slow-motion, cool music, big action and comic book style – if that is all you want without caring about any of it then this will fill your ears and eyes for a while – but if you want more then best give this a miss.
- bob the moo
- Jul 6, 2011
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Sucker Punch - Mundo surreal
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $82,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $36,392,502
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $19,058,199
- Mar 27, 2011
- Gross worldwide
- $89,792,502
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1