So, Saturday night, I rounded up the crew and we went and saw Sucker Punch.  It was subtler and cleverer than I thought Zack Snyder could do, but that's not saying its the next Inception.... though strangely these films do have something in common.  If the snark level is lower than usual, its only because I enjoyed it.

The movie opens with a sort of washed out grey and black house, with a gray and black world, and a way to pale and puffy to be real kewpie doll in pink... pajamas I'd guess... running barefoot through a washed out sound of crying as the doctor pulls a sheet over a dead woman, just so the sheet can be pulled back for a good Trailer shot of the dead woman's face.

This girl is Babydoll. Since I can't think of a clever name for her, or at least one more snarky than the one she was given, she'll remain Babydoll.   She doesn't speak, and an opening narration in a girl's voice goes on about guardian angels and shit.  There is a montage of a rainy funeral, the creepy stepdad figure smirking at the dead woman, viciously shovelling the first spadeful of dirt on her coffin and cutting open the will to find out he's not it... oh noes!

This sort of abreviated montage sort of closes up to more normal pacing, but the sound is still muted. Babydoll is locked in her room, her ghostly younger sister runs into a closet, chased by the evil stepdad... and finally something not in the trailer... babydoll, still in her pink PJ's (what is this? The same day? Its still raining... what's going on around here?! Management!) goes spiderman around the outside of the house, runs in for his gun and does the whole 'I'm so serious I'll shoot out the lightbulb behind you' routine to get Evil Stepdad out of the closet (HEE!).

Oops. Too late, sis is somehow dead. Strangled? Stabbed?  I don't know. Babydoll drops the gun and starts crying... apparently for a really.long.time. Long enough for the police to show up, get the story from ES, summon somebody to drug her and haul her off the psycho ward.  

Time is... weird... in Babydoll's world.  If I had to hazard a guess, this opening ten minutes or so of film spans more time than the entire rest of it put together, but it FEELS like only a few hours have passed since mom died.

Anyway, Babydoll wakes up from her drug induced stupor just as the orderlies take her from ES's car, still in her pink PJs.  Aside from the opening narration, this is where dialog in the film really begins.   As the silent Babydoll is led through the asylum as the head orderly (Raul Julia Junior) and ES talk... establishing that they both know she isn't crazy and this is strictly a shady business deal between them... we see the four elements from the Trailer that we know Babydoll is going to have to get. We see a map of the Ayslum, a guard with a zippo, a chef with a knife and the key around RJJ's neck.

At last Babydoll and ES are led to "The Theater", where the crazies hang out. Here we find out that ES is paying two grand to have Babydoll Lobotomized in five days, just to keep her from talking, we see a couple of random (I suspect not so random, but they may as well be) crazy girls toss a table around. The Theater is aptly named, for there is, in fact, a stage at one end of the room. On the stage is a bed, and on the bed is another crazy girl who we will shortly meet for reals.  The Doctor that, in theory, runs this joint is Carla Guginla, who we last saw being cannibalized slowly by a demented hobbit in Sin City. She's the therapist and she's walking around playing with an old Reel to Reel.

ES steps out of the picture and Babydoll is led away to her Lobotomy. As the spike is rammed home a girl yells Stop!

And we pan back, and 'Babydoll' pulls off her wig and hops out of the chair on the stage. Its the crazy girl from the bed. She looks a bit like Lohan to me. Her name is Sweetpea, but I shall call her Not-Lohan.  She's explaining how she gets the schoolgirl outfits and playing helpless, but pretending to be lobotomized is too creepy for her to buy it as sexy... she is, you see, the star of the show, and that show is stripping.  She hops down to see a smarmy looking pimp version of RJJ, babydoll, still mute, and the ES as an Irish Catholic priest, maybe even a bishop, but I'm not entirely up on the regalia to know for certain.

In five days the virginal babydoll is going to be handed off to 'The High Roller' as a special deal.  Not-Lohan is too much the diva to handle newby tours, so she hands it off to another dancer, her sister, Rocket, who looks a bit like Hermionie, so I shall dub her Not-Hermionie. Simple.  This is when Babydoll, finally, breaks her silence. Its nothing major, and she'll be talking normally the whole film from this point on, but I did find it facinating that she was essentially mute for the first twenty or so minutes.  I think I get it, but I don't want to spoil myself, so there.

Our first stop on the tour is the 'work room', where Not-Hermionie rides the red velvet bed for a second and explains in euphemism how prostituition works.  They bip around for a bit then go to the dressing room/bedroom where all the girls are.

Now, there are probably a dozen girls in this film, but we really only meet five total. The other two are Vanessa Hudgens, dubbed Blondie by the film and Miss Nude Disney by me, and Angel, who is also, I believe, from Disney, but I've dubbed her 'Token Asian Girl'.  The rest won't get names, lines or even a measurable amount of screentime.

Eh. Minor goof: before we meet the girls, they go to the dance room. This is where Hobbit Cannibal Victim is now a polish dance instructor, complete with a massively heavy cane she uses to keep time. She was a polish doctor before, so not much changed I guess. Not-Lohan is dancing, but upon seeing the new girl, she puts babydoll on the spot, turns on the music on the Reel to Reel and.... nothing happens.

Now, I should point out that all these girls are dressed more or less like ballerinas that are practicing, and they will wear these outfits the entire film. This is one weird strip club.  

Now we go to the meet and greet.  Miss Nude Disney looks a bit like Snooki and, frankly, she does a better job actressin' than I thought she could manage.  The question remains: is she held back by the writing or is this as good as she gets?  If Token Asian Girl IS in fact from Disney, she's doing a LOT better than I expected, but again: is it the material or is this her A-Game?

Doesn't matter, we quickly figure out that the character order goes Babydoll, Not-Hermionie, Not-Lohan, RJJ, HCV, and the Disney Twins, followed by just about everybody else... leaving aside one character we haven't really met yet.

Cut too: Babydoll, in a grey smocklike schoolgirl outfit (complete with thigh high stockings) scrubbing an institutional floor on her hands and knees.  NH is in the kitchen in her dancer outfit hauling a sack of potatoes across the floor while a fat cook, possibly with psoriasis, eats a potatoe chip sandwhich. She steals a brick of baking chocolate and the fat cook is on her like white on rice. She screams. Cut to babydoll, looking puzzled, cut to NH and the Cook in extreme close up, struggling and screaming, cut to babydoll...  eventually she does get up to see what the fuss is, snatches a knife from the cooks belt and pulls him off of NH with the knife at his throat, and the girls flee, leaving the knife behind.

Oh, but now its time to dance!  The transitions in the film are a bit smoother than this, don't get me wrong, but a lot of scenes seem to exist on their own. The cook never follows up after the attack, and so forth.

HCV puts Babydoll on the spot again for dancing, with RJJ watching with his retinue of pimp-goons.  Babydoll does nothing, the music is stopped and HCV hisses at her that if she doesn't dance, she's basically dead, plus some advice how to get past stage fright... and the music is back on.   Babydoll closes her eyes, sways for the Trailer and...

She's wearing a black schoolgirl outfit, with wicked oxfords, thigh highs and so forth, walking across a snowy courtyard. A monk that looks familiar, to me he looks a bit like Leonard Nimoy, so I'll call him Not-Spock, pretty much gives her the entire line from the Trailer, nothing much added or taken away.  Here's some weapons, you'll need five things for your freedom, you have to fight... and then he disappears.  Not so obvious from the trailers is that he gives her a .45, complete with cute dangly-thingies, in addition to the katana, which has some awesome decorations on the blade that we can't see clearly.

She walks outside and there are three massive samurai dudes with glowy red eyes. We get a nice perspective shot actually, they are about twenty feet tall, or maybe they are 30 feet tall, and babydoll is only 4 feet tall... she is pretty short.  Anyway, the one with the giant spear punches her through the temple doors, back inside, then they proceed to fight for a bit.

I was... underwhelmed.  Basically he swings at her a bunch and she either dodges or parries, getting knocked around impressively for a bit while she apparently gets her head around the fact that she's fighting a giant samurai dude!

Then she cuts the head off his spear, rides the tip and cuts him off at the knees, then cuts he head in half and we're done.

Cue Samurai two who launches a rocket at her, as per the Trailer, then pulls out his massive Gatling Gun. Again: She runs four square around the temple, clearing all the support pillars (which are apparently hollow, like barrels rather than solid poles... just something i noticed as the bullets chewed them apart). As she rounds the last corner she charges, fliping over the stream of bullets and shoots him in the eye, riding his corpse out the door as the temple collapses behind her.

Samurai three is waiting across the courtyard. He draws his sword slowly, with fear trembles in his hand, which I guess is supposed to Worf Up Babydoll, but just seemed... sad.  they run at each other, babydoll cuts him up, does the whole knee-slam landing (much repeated in the film), as the last samurai falls behind her.

And she opens her eyes to everyone coming down off a crack high  or something, because her dance is just that AWESOME!  Not-Lohan is jealous that her star is being stolen, HCV is happy she's such a good dance instructor, and RJJ is pleased as punch he doesn't have to kill any of his girls to motivate them... seriously.

Back in the dressing room, Babydoll pitches her escape plan, writing down the four things she knows she needs, and pleasantly ignoring the fact that she doesn't know what item 5 is, because she doesn't even mention it to the others.

Not-Lohan doesn't want to risk her sister's life on a half baked escape attempt, but Not-Hermionie is totally down, seeing as how her life was just saved from teh cook.  The disney twins are totally on board, however.

So, the plan is for Babydoll to dance while the rest of the crew steals the shit she needs to escape. Seriously.  Not-Lohan decides to fall on the first grenade, and steal RJJ's map.

So, despite the fact that Babydoll, seriously, JUST DANCED... FOR EVERYONE!, NL goes to RJJ's office and tells him 'oh, by the way, Babydoll is gonna dance, go check it out.'. He looks suspicious, but leaves and she goes in his office to steal the map off the wall, spotting what looks like a 1970's era copy machine under some crap.

Back in the dance room, Babydoll does her little hip sway, eye close and!

Quick note: I rather suspect that the actress, in this case, does not have a background in dance. Its a hunch, but she lacks a certain grace and fluidity in her action scenes. Maybe its the wire work. She's not BAD, mind you, but she could have been better.

Anyway: She and her entire crew, all dressed in their own unique uniforms of 'bad-ass, half naked girl-ness' are in the trenches, while Not-Spock explains how the germans have a map of the trenches, and its about to be couriered away, and its up to them to go get it. He also explains how these are zombie clockwork germans, so kill as much as you like.  The girls all have blades, Not-Lohan has, in fact, a crusader sword over her shoulder that she will never, not ever, use. They also have modern firearms, M16's, MP5's with all the Rainbow-six bells and whistles.  WooHoo!!!

Meanwhile, biplanes and zepplins scoot around the sky shooting shit up.

The girls head out into the main trench where a bunch of exhausted doughboys line the walls, facing in with a prayerlike aspect to them.  Angel is introduced to her new toy, a egg shaped mech with a pink kitty painted on the front.  Her mech catches a stray round and she rockets up into the sky to shoot down biplanes willy-nilly.  The rest of the girls do the Ranger-walk across no-man's land and into the german trenches as Not-Spock warns them that they have to work as a team. Of course they immedeatly get split up, with Not-Hermionie rushing ahead and getting swamped. The action here is a lot better, despite the zombie-germans essentially being mooks.

Now we start to get a handle on the girls a bit. MND is essentially filler, TAG is the pilot, and the two Not's have the sort of sibling relationship where one is always getting into trouble and the other goes through unreasonable risks to save her... with Babydoll as the frontwoman to our five girl band.  

I mean it. Token Asian Girl will not be whopping ANY ass with kung-fu in this fill, thats for the white girls, but she does a hell of a lot more on film than Miss Nude Disney does.

Anyway, the girls get to the bunker, but Babydoll gets trapped inside with the zombie-Colonel, who doesn't look at all familiar, and the not-quite-zombie courier...who is Raul Julia Junior!!!  Its a trap!

The three girls outside go rushing off, since they can't get in, and babydoll has a fight for her life in the bunker...until a random bomb blows it up right after she stabs zombie-colonel to the wall.

But the courier has the map, and he's running! And she's chasing, cutting down zombie-germans by the dozens! Only! He gets to the Zepplin! He's hanging from the ladder, he's GONE! Oh NOES!!!

She grabs a Lewis Gun from a pair of hapless zombies and shoots the Zepplin out of the SKY!  REBOUND!!!!  Zombie-RJJ goes flying, she finds him, stabs him, takes his map! hahahahahaha!!!

Wait! Zombie-Colonel wasn't dead, dead, only mostly dead.. and he's got the entire zombie army at his back, pinning her against the wall. Naturally she throws the map up into the air, just in time for the TAG-Mech, complete with the rest of the girl gang to show up and stomp face, while babydoll proves that you don't put baby in the corner. She climbs on teh mech, it rockets in to the sky, she snatches the map and !

We're back to the dance hall where even the girls are adjusting their trousers awkwardly. Damn, that's some dance.

The girls cross 'Map' off the blackboard, celebrating an easy win. Meanwhile, RJJ goes to his office for some alone time, but something's off... what is it? Oh? That old copier he sits on? Its warm... naturally he inspects the map with a pair of glasses he pulls out of his jacket. There are TWO pinholes in the corner! aha!

The next day the girls discuss fire. Apparently the Mayor really like Angel, she's his special friend when he comes to visit, and the Mayor smokes Big.Fat.Stogies.

So, the plan is for Babydoll, in her first PUBLIC performance to wow the crowd while Angel swipes his fancy gold lighter. Subtle!

Only... HCV doesn't like this plan. Baby ain't ready for a public performance. But RJJ explains how he runs the show, and the girls, all the girls, are his... capice?

So the mayor shows up, Angel crawls on his lap while HCV pulls a bit of a Jessica Rabbit to explain that they've got a special, raw treat.  She doesn't slink it up, actually, that's just how she shows up on stage, dressed to the hilt and smokin' it.

And there is babydoll, closing her eyes again as Angel reaches into the Mayor's jacket.

And the girls on on a plane.  Angel is flying and Not-Spock tells MND where to find the guns. They're flying over a castle, there is fire and dudes with swords on a causeway. NS drops a propane tank bomb on the orcs inside the castle as he explains how they gotta kill the baby and get the fire crystals without weaking mom... and the girls airdrop (no parachutes!) into the courtyard, killing a few random orcs before finding a baby dragon sleeping on a pile of human bones over a massive lava pit.  Babydoll goes for the slow kill, and the pull the gooey crystals out, sparking them for the Trailer, and going slow enough that the momma dragon climbs out of the pit to chase them with fire.

As the girls reach teh courtyard, teh dragon pulls herself out of the top of the castle. Girls fight the knights who had made it across the causeway, and the dragon chases the plane, biting off the tailgunner seat and almost getting MND! Only, she's got catlike reflexes and a wicked backflip.

Eventually the dragon does a sort of divebomb run to the courtyard, chasing the girls, breathign fire the whole way, in a powerslide through the open gate where babydoll does an anime leap, twirl and slow-mo stab through teh skull... and giving us a slow look at the etchings on the blade, which appear to be a telling of this particular action scene, complete with planes and dragons oh my!

The mayor goes nuts, leaping to his feet, clapping at the show! His ash falls, hitting his shoe and he reaches for his lighter, only its not there!

The girls go wild in their dressing room lair, crossing off 'fire', taping the lighter  to the bottom of a desk drawer seconds before RJJ barges in to find out why they are so happy! See.. he's on to them, and he doesn't like what he sees. He headchucks MND into a mirror to prove his point and tells them that, whatever they are doing, they better stop before he gets violent on their girly asses.  Not-Lohan says she's had enough, and she and Not-Hermionie are done. Not-Hermionie say 'hell naw, sis, she totally saved my ass from the cook, we're blowing this popsicle stand. Stop following me into whorehouses to save me from slavery and shit!'.

And somehow they've only got one more day before 'The High Roller' Shows up. Really? Ok then.  Obviously they're gonna steal a knife from the cook, but how? Well, its NH's turn to filch something... or was it MNDs?

MND goes to swag the Reel to Reel that has been used for every dance so far, but HCV show up and interrupts her.  Meanwhile, in the kitchen the girls toss everything off the counter so Babydoll can stand on it. Water pours down a drain, chairs roll.. the cook looks baffled, but then again, I suspect he's supposed to be a little... slow.

Now what?

MND is about to spill the beans to the sympathetic looking HCV, all crying and shit because her hair got mussed when RJJ slammed her head into the mirror the other day.  But a familiar lookign pinky ring shows up out of focus before she can talk.

Luckily, NL shows up to show the other girls how its done. See, there is a nasty ass old radio right fucking there in the god damn kitchen! No reel-to-reel necessary! She's only doing it to keep NH from getting killed doing something dumb. Cue Music, Cue shoulder sway, cue!

Not Spock is explaining how they've got to take this helicopter to that high tech looking train over there.  A bomb, code named 'Knife' is on that train, guarded by.... um... I forget what he called 'em.  They're robots and they look like the bastard child of the terminator and the NS-7's from I, Robot.  Anyway, they've got to disarm the bomb and helicoptor it out, and its gonna blow if it hits the city over there. Any questions?

Angel flies the helicoptor, HN carries the heavy dufflebag with their rocket packs and disarming codes (heavy, seriously, they give it that heavy clunk sound effect and everything!).

Of course, they are down a girl (MND), and for some reason NL has a shotgun, which will eventually be punched/cut in half by the robots. Its a hard fight, harder than the dragon I think, and the bomb if huge. They blow the roof off the train, unbolt the bomb, hook up some straps and shit...

And the music dies when water shorts the cord. The cook blinks, sees the girl with a knife in her hand (NL I think... maybe NH) and goes berzerk while Babydoll watches helplessly.  The knife skitters across the floor and lands at TAG's feet, NH dives between the cook and NL... and the music grinds back on, and Babydoll closes her eyes.

One of the bolts wasn't undone, while NH undoes it, a half a robot rearms the bomb. OH NOES!

The mission is scrubbed. NH's rocket pack is fubared, but NL's rocket pack can carry both of them (babydoll is hauled off  by the chopper, since she's attached to the cables). Of course it can. No problem... oh, and forgive me as I ignite your rocket pack for you... oopsie!

The cook looks dumbfounded as RJJ barrels into the kitchen. NH is dying of a stab wound while NL cries over her not-quite-dead-yet corpse. NH manages to tell NL to 'tell mom I love her' before dying beautifully. This is important, people! There WILL BE a test!

RJJ lines up everyone in the dressing room, even the nameless, faceless dancers we'd forgotten existed. He reveals that he knows everything. He smacks around HCV when she tries to defuse his rage. He flips over the blackboard to reveal the fact that the girls had already crossed off 'Knife'...premature of them, isn't it?  He's pissed. He shoots MND in the head! Boom, Headshot! because no one likes a fucking traitor. He shoots TAG in the back because... no one likes an excess character!  He even threatens to shoot Babydoll, but its too late, the High Roller is here, and damned if she ain't gonna dance for him.

What about NL? Oh... she got tossed in the closet during the transition from teh kitchen, sorry, my bad.

He runs everyone out but Babydoll, mostly because he figures... you know what? Screw the money, I'ma tap that virgin ass right now! She pulls the knife from under the drawer during the struggle and stabs him through the clavical. Heh.

Down he goes. She mocks him, takes his key and tells him he ain't got her and never will...

ESCAPE!  First NL gets out of the closet, then the closet gets fire. Its a flaming closet! Get it? Okay, I won't quit my day job just yet... sigh.  The girls sneak around for a bit, the fire alarm covers their exit and they get outside, staring at a bunch of nice cars and big, burly limo-drivers standing between them and freedom.

"I get it now. I'm the fifth thing. You have to escape, Not-Lohan, because, despite the fact that I was never really crazy, You are the only one strong enough to make it on the outside." She walks boldly forward, kicks a dude in the balls while NL sneaks around the mob and out the gate. The dude she kicked gets up and punches her in the face!

And Mad Men guy pulls back from the ice pick with a look of confusion on his face. Nobody ever looked at him like that during a lobotomy before, he says to Doctor HCV as she walks in the room. They natter on a bit about what a handful she's been, how odd it is to do a lobotomy after only five days... didn't you authorize it? No? Forged signatures? What?

Orderlies take the faceless blonde girl out where she walks past the burned closet, the shaken looking cook, teh guard without his zippo and is met by RJJ in a bandage and bloody t-shirt. He's got... plans... for her as they escort her into the back.  The other orderlies argue with him that this is wrong, hurting the faceless girl is wrong. He yells at them to get out and they do.

He gets sort of creepy/guilty with the faceless girl, kissing her, throttling her, but the cops arrive with doctor HCV to haul him out as he protests he's hurt, they don't understand him and how he puts the dead girls out of their misery, how he'll tell them all about the Evil Stepdad... the camera pans back to a placid babydoll.

NL, looking very normal and not all that Lohan in a vintage dress waits for a bus. A couple of cops show up  to interrogate her about a  missing crazy girl, but the bus driver is Not-Spock and he runs them off.

Pretty mousy she thanks him and proclaims she is ticket-less, but he tells her to get on the bus as her voice narrates the ending, picking up where she started at the beggining of the film.

Roll credits.

Ima do my analysis shit in another post, as I'm out of time.

M'kay, I'm back. I know, short break, but necessary..

Anyway: while obviously not as serious as Inception, and certainly catering to its intended audience, I pretty much found it exactly as deep as Inception, with layered worlds, and dreams within dreams.  

In fact, given that the layered dreams of Inception don't actually... you know.. interact with one another meaningfully (other than the 'push' to wake up), in this regard its actually deeper.  

Heresy, I know.

I imagine there is a pretty awesome story to be told just from the point of view of the asylum, seeing as how the 'strip club' events and the Asylum events are apparently nearly perfectly paired up, if in metaphor.  It does make me wonder, particularly, about the deaths of the Disney Twins, and how Not Lohan followed Not-Hermionie into the asylum.  

A flaw could be found in the lack of connection between the action scenes and the strip club scenes, of course, but the reality flows the other way.  TAG is the pilot, the mechanic, the go to girl, and she is the one who steals the knife and the lighter.   NH gets knifed, but in dying saves her sister... its not perfect, far from it.

But its about twenty times deeper than I expected.  The fact that Babydoll isn't really the protagonist at all, but the guardian angel is... unexpected. It doesn't actually make much sense... but details, details.

The narrations that bookend the film do explain how and why. Its clumsy, and can be ineffective, but its there. We are watching how fate/angels move pieces into place to help someone, not the someone being helped.

Unfortunately, the dialog actually opposes this. Babydoll has a hard time articulating what she wants to Not-Spock, but they agree that she's looking for freedom, a way out.  She doesn't actually ask to avoid the high-roller/lobotimization, and you can argue that after the icepick you are pretty fucking stress free...


Ironically, the weakest part of the film, to me, is the part I trusted Mr. Snyder to deliver, the action.  He has a sure hand and plenty of confidence, but I think the choreography is where it went down. Maybe I can blame his coconspirators.

Anyway: There it is.  Hard to analyze with people lecturing at me =D

Hmmn. I didn't think much of Sucker Punch. It found it tedious much of the time. For me, the acting was poor, the dialog was poor, the execution of the ideas and plot was not as good as it could be.

It's one saving grace, to my mind, was the visuals and the fight scenes. The look of the film is awesome.

Seanchai

I won't disagree with you, Seanchai.

I mean, we've got fuggin' Disney queens up in there! The 'main' character was apparently hired for doe eyes, puffy lips and an overhead that wouldn't clear five feet without heels.

And as much as I love Carla, she's a ham. A hot ham, but a ham.

Ditto dialog, though of course... this is a director who made shouting 'Madness?...This is SPARTA!' into a national pastime. Expecting Shakespear?

I do think I point out that the execution of the plot and ideas could have been... defter. However, to me the big selling point is that is is, in fact, a hell of a lot better handled than we expect from a guy who makes movies by literally taking and shooting graphic novels frame by frame...


That is the thrust of my review and the thrust of my rebuttal to your point: Everything that sucks about Sucker-Punch is much less sucky than you should have expected it to be, and thus, in its own way, it is a triumph!

No, not the motorcycle... the synonym for victory.

Quote from: Spike;448667However, to me the big selling point is that is is, in fact, a hell of a lot better handled than we expect from a guy who makes movies by literally taking and shooting graphic novels frame by frame...

I like 300. I can't say I have positive feelings about Watchmen, but I have at least neutral ones.

Seanchai

While it certainly wasn't Shakespeare, I kinda liked it. I mean, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare and I wasn't expecting it to be coherant either, so no dissappointment there. It was kinda strange and a bit different. Nothing to get all frothed up about. I guess that's the part I don't understand. I don't get why people are all psycho-pissed-off like Zack Snyder showed up and took a shit on their doorstep or something. Did anyone really watch the trailers and think "This is going to be the greatest movie ever. This will revolutionize the industry"? Really? I must just be old and jaded I guess.

It's Moulin Rouge by the guy who brought you 300.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;448951It's Moulin Rouge by the guy who brought you 300.

Except there's no actual singing and dancing. 99% of it happens off camera. And thank god none of the actors try to sing.

Quote from: IMLegend;448972Except there's no actual singing and dancing. 99% of it happens off camera. And thank god none of the actors try to sing.

Instead of singing and dancing there's violent action scenes. Thus my original statement.

Singing and dancing, btw, were filmed and cut from the theatrical release except for the credits. They will be in the director's cut on DVD.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;448951It's Moulin Rouge by the guy who brought you 300.

Well, now I have to see it.

But Watchmen is my favorite super hero movie (Darknight and Ironman tie for second).

Can someone give me a 50 word or less summary of Spike's review, I'm immune to "Text Wall."

Quote from: Aos;448990Can someone give me a 50 word or less summary of Spike's review, I'm immune to "Text Wall."

"A whole shitload of stuff happens. Deeper than Inception."

Quote from: IMLegend;448834Did anyone really watch the trailers and think "This is going to be the greatest movie ever. This will revolutionize the industry"?

No. However, there's a difference between "greatest movie ever" and bad. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, but I also wasn't expecting to be bored and waiting impatiently for the movie to end.

Seanchai

Quote from: Aos;448990Can someone give me a 50 word or less summary of Spike's review, I'm immune to "Text Wall."

A young girl's mother died and her abusive stepfather puts her in an insane asylum to keep her quiet about the abuse. While there, she's scheduled for a lobotomy by the bad guy orderly.

On the way in, she sees various things she can use to escape the institution. Right before the lobotomy, she enters a fantasy world in which is a prostitute owned by the bad orderly. The bad orderly forces her to dance on stage and every time she does, she enters a a second fantasy world.

In this second fantasy world, she and the other patients are kick ass woman warriors. They go on missions to procure the pieces of the escape plan.

Seanchai

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;448985Instead of singing and dancing there's violent action scenes. Thus my original statement.

Singing and dancing, btw, were filmed and cut from the theatrical release except for the credits. They will be in the director's cut on DVD.

Well whoopie!