Quick Thoughts on Sucker Punch

It's been taking longer than I thought it would to really get used to my new schedule with work and everything, so there have been fewer posts here than usual. But I did just see Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch this evening and wanted to post a few quick thoughts on the flick.

The thing that strikes me most is that this is a movie for those who love action scenes, not necessarily those who love action movies. You see there is a big fucking difference between the two, I mean, consider that Dirty Harry and Die Hard are considered classics of the action genre, and yet they both have very few actual sequences of action, instead they had an action oriented story, with terrorists or serial killers or whatever. Well Sucker Punch is the opposite end of that spectrum. This is still an action movie, but people who love action movies may not necessarily dig it, or at the very least those who dig American action flicks.

The movie is filled with large scale action sequences. I mean, after the first act and they find out what they need to collect, it basically becomes a string of battles, fights, and whatnot. I am a lover of Hong Kong action and martial arts movies, where the focus really is about the set pieces and fighting, and I have to admit, even I was a bit exhausted by the third or forth large action set piece in a row. What do I mean by in a row? Well, the flick has one huge sequence, then pretty much immediately afterwards, has another one. It's all coming at you at a rapid fire pace and pretty much doesn't slow down ever. So yeah, I get why a large group of people would dislike the movie, but personally, I savor the amount of work that goes into making a scene like these work, so I still dug the flick quite a bit. Others who want a story, well, you're not gonna get much.

Aside from the action pieces though, I have to admit I really liked the opening five or ten minutes, however long Sweet Dreams is playing on the screen. I found that it was just as great as Zack Snyder's openings to both Dawn of the Dead and Watchmen.

The film goes really dark in the final act, I mean, if I personally had any real complaint against the flick(cause I don't find the action to be a problem) it's that by ending it the way it did, it kind of saps all the energy the first two acts of the flick gave you and has you leaving in a sort of somber place. It wasn't anything too bad though, and is definitely not enough to really sway your opinion of the flick one way or the other, cause let's face it, you've made up your mind about the flick long before the final act.

All right, that's what I've got for now, as I sit with the flick I may come up with some more stuff, but all in all, I personally dug it, although I guess that I'm pretty heavily in the minority here.