Sucker punch to the head: headache

Rating: 5/10 (30 November 2012)

That's how it felt watching this Zack Snyder's movie. It opens up with a 20 year old 'Baby Doll' (Emily Browning), whom mother just die. She's forced to live with her stepfather, despite her being of legal age to live on her own even in 1960's society. In a 1980's pop grudge music video style montage, the audience sees that her stepfather try to rape & she is blamed for the death of her younger sister when she misfired the gun & the bullet struck the younger sister. Unlike Zack Snyder's previous film, the music does not fit the film at all. It's doesn't match the time settling, It's go in and out of pop, rap & heavy metal. She's institutionalized in an asylum by him, once again despite being legal age. The stepfather bribes orderlies Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), into forging the signature of the psychiatrist, Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), to have Baby Doll lobotomized so she cannot inform the cops of the true circumstances leading to her sister's death. Baby Doll wants four items, map, fire, knife, & key that she would need to attempt an escape. This is where the film does go into off the wall fantasy world with somewhat truth to it. This mental asylum is a monarch mind control experiment site. They systematically repeated the sexual abuse for wellness. They used music to encourage them to dissociate from reality by dancing. By dancing, she escapes the most humiliating aspect of her private hell, being made to dance for the pleasure of others, symbolic of sexual abuse. She does this by turning that experience around, instead of it being about surrender & humiliation, she makes it about fighting & survival, but what doesn't make sense is the dream world, she creates. How these imagination introduces in the story, background, or character development. She dreams of feudal Japan with giant samurais, WW1 trench warfare with German zombies, flying in a WW2 Bomber chasing down a dragon, & last a futuristic train ride with robots. Where in the story are these outlandish ideas of her introduces or comes from? She didn't show any interest in anime, video game, & steam punk. Those genres didn't really become well known at the time. It is nonsensical action scenes with no depth. It only somewhat mirrored her real life. The only dream that kind of does make any sense is that she thinks she's in brothel and her virginity is sold to the 'High Roller' AKA lobotomy doctor (Jon Hamm). She befriends four others – Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), & Rocket's sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) convincing to escape with her. Why is she, all of a sudden a prostitute might be explain by what was truly happening in their ordeals in the hospital that are manifested as enemies in the dreams. It is here in the dreams, she meet the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). He revealed a fifth item is needed for "a deep sacrifice'. The "Wise man", might be another aspect of her personality, doling out cod philosophy & warnings. What hurts the film is in the beginning, the audience sees that Baby Doll doesn't escape her lobotomy thus we enter the brothel reality with Sweet Pea playing Baby Doll. In my opinion, all the characters represent different aspects of Sweet Pea & the whole film takes place in Pea's head. The movie does start with Sweet Pea narrating & Baby Doll does say to Pea "this is your story". Baby Doll is just a character that Sweet Pea created to be strong enough to escape, the person who puts all the actions of the story into motion. Pea's sister Rocket dies in somewhat the same way as Baby Doll with her sister. Many critics say the girls aren't empowered in any way because they are constantly in danger of being raped. While they are victimized, the movie shows how they still fight back with incredible strength, & they have to in order to escape their harsh lives. Baby Doll's arrival makes the rest of the characters realize that they have to look within themselves to find the courage to battle depression. My own interpretation is that the film is a tale of someone with multiple personality disorder fighting her way back to sanity. The initial sequence shows Baby doll helping the child defy her abusive father, this results in that classic punishment of abused children, being locked in a closet. The child dies in that closet to that represents the death of the Sweet Pea's sanity & innocence. Note toward the end, Blue has Pea locked in a closet. When her courage, Baby doll is almost lost – the lobotomy, she escapes in that last instant, to another world, the bordello. In sense, the men that sexual abuse can't dominate her, or make her feel him, which makes him go crazy in his own sexual frustration and dejection. She's basically laughing at him. The sexy schoolgirl outfits might represent both her lost innocence and the perverse demands of men. If the films show the exploitation and sexism without condoning it they would not need to have the actresses act sexually appealing, styled sexually provocative & have the movie filmed in such a highly sexually focused way. The really interesting thing about the movie to me is that they are saying that sexually objectifying and exploiting women is wrong while sexualizing exploiting and objectifying this female actresses. It's like they can't see it themselves. Whatever, the actual story might be, this film is confusing to the points, it's provokes headache. If look as not a smart movie; the movie seems to be for dumb teenagers with scenes with awful acting sexy girls in skimpy uniforms with overused CGI visuals. The men in the film are portrayal as rapists isn't greatly like. The film is pure sexual violence for entertainment. Modern way of Ludus Magna and Panem et Circenses.