October 31, 2012

• I generally hate finding out that I'm wrong but, occasionally, it's a pleasant surprise.

  Sucker Punch, the film, looked like your average blockbuster fair from the previews (with a high dosage of male-fantasy fodder). But I don't generally trust a trailer so I was hopeful. Most reviews affirmed my intuitions.

  Instead, the movie turned out, pleasantly, to be exactly what I expected (a stunning visual feast with outstanding camera work – and I'm generally someone who couldn't give a crap about the technical side of any art form) and entirely not what I expected (a usual blockbuster with a particularly more open and insidious male-lens).

  In some ways, this was my experience with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (speaking of which, – after I had first seen it – I had intended to (though, clearly, had failed to get around to) gush to you, @XxbutterflyknivesXx, about it because I knew you were a fan (in part because you had done three or so posts mentioning it in a row around that time) and it had so escaped any expectations I had for it (which is part of why I was so pleasantly surprised; very few films truly surprise me now). Beforehand, I heard plenty of mention of it (the theater across the street from where I interned for the summer actually was showing it) but knew absolutely nothing about it; outside of just hearing the title, your occasional entries regarding it were all I knew about it (and the entries rarely made any sense to me since I knew absolutely nothing about the series)).

  The production does a beautiful job highlighting the tone and narrative and, though I couldn't yet identify any for the life of me, it became quickly evident to me that the movie itself is rather ripe with symbolism (the English major in me was quite pleased).

  It'll need a few more views to pass my usual high expectations for artwork (plus there's a shit-ton of stuff going on) but I was pleased and surprised. A lack of more development of the characters (they did get the usual blockbuster roles and development; i.e. near to none since the standard role you can infer should tell you all you need to know about the character and the difficulties they'll face in this action film) is the only complaint that comes to my head at the moment.

  Hmm, I meant for this to be short and just to share. Oh well. TL;DR: Sucker Punch is a surprising cool and complex film.

  • 4:19 am
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