STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM - “Sucker Punch”
- Jeffrey Tung
- Apr 9, 2018
- 2 min read
When dealing with a harsh and overwhelming situation, sometimes the mind copes with it by imagining a fantasy world they would rather be in.
Directed by Zack Snyder, screenplay by Snyder & Steve Shibuya, and story by Snyder, Sucker Punch starts off with a young woman named Babydoll who is sent to a female mental asylum after accidentally killing her sister when she was trying to save her from being assaulted by their abusive widowed stepfather. The stepfather bribes an orderly to have Babydoll lobotomized in order to hide his own actions.
Once at the asylum, encountering other patients and analyzing her surroundings, Babydoll imagines the asylum as a brothel where she is a new sex slave, a virgin, who befriends the other dancers, the patients. Together, they come up with a plan to escape the brothel before Babydoll’s buyer, the High Roller, arrives.
The selling points of the story are the unique fantasy worlds that the girls are dropped into that represent their journey to get an item that will help with their escape.
The development of characters is not the film’s main concern; it’s meant to showcase its visual effects of the worlds, each has a crossover appeal to it.
Aside from the brothel itself, there are separate worlds, including one giant samurai with modern weaponry live in...
A Lord of the Rings style planet with orcs, planes and guns...
A World War I world that has steampunk zombies and giant mech armor...
And finally, futuristic world filled with robots.
Speaking of the latter, the film does an impressive gunfight between the women and the robots where it looks like it was filmed in one take with many slow-then-fast motions to make it seem more visceral. You can definitely feel each punch the fighters suffer when they get hit.
On that aspect, the film accomplishes that beautifully. Each world are so distinguished that they feel very real to the point where you wish they had its own film so they can be better explored.
When the film decides to focus on its characters… well, that’s where the film is at its weakest. As I said, there is no development; there is a goal that they want to achieve, to escape, and that’s enough for them. Is it enough for the audience? That’s really up to you.
I came across the film after watching the film’s trailer and was absolutely aware of the work of Zack Snyder. I think he is a talented director in terms of delivering spectacle, which makes sense since he has a background in directing music videos much like the previously mentioned David Fincher, Michael Bay, and Francis Lawrence.
Sucker Punch is a visually striking film that certainly follows the “show, don’t tell” rule of film, even if it does stumble when it is allowed to tell.
Gather your weapons, and check it out.
