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{{work}}
[[File:sucker punch banner 2202.jpg|frame|[[Fan Service|Hot amazons]], [[Girls with Guns|machine guns]] and [[
{{quote|''"[[Tagline|Reality is a prison.]]
''[[Your Mind Makes It Real|Your mind can set you free.]]"'' }}
'''''Sucker Punch''''' is an [[Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly|action/fantasy/horror/thriller]] [[Feminist Fantasy]] [[Sleeper Hit]] and soon to be{{when}} [[Cult Classic]], directed, written, produced and conceptualized by [[Zack Snyder]] and released by [[Warner Bros]] about a young girl's planned escape from an insane asylum and... well, have a look at the tropes. It's highly stylized and highly self-aware, and deals with escapism in all its different forms: referencing practically every movie and video game under the sun, the film is a celebration of the idea that [[Tropes Are Not Bad]] and some slight {{spoiler|1="[[You Bastard|You are a perverted bastard]] for looking for tight clothing and wanting the 'Dance' show and seeing the girls as nails and objects and looking for [[Fan Service]] / [[Rule of Sexy]] which aren't actually there"}} controversial morals slipped in to '''Sucker Punch''' the gentlemen in the audience.
Alternatively, an over-produced, unusually written, sexist, twisted [[Mind Screw]] pretending to be about female empowerment, but is really the director's wet dream.
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Special mention goes to the film's soundtrack: the entire score is composed of industrial and modern covers of popular songs (mostly girls singing tracks written by men, while averting [[The Cover Changes the Gender]]). These include songs famous for being used in previous films about hallucinations.<ref>notably, "Where Is My Mind?" by [[The Pixies]] and [[Jefferson Airplane]]'s "White Rabbit". [[Emily Browning]] herself sings on three songs; "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" by Eurythmics, "Where is My Mind?" by the Pixies and "Asleep" by [[The Smiths]]</ref> The result is a very self-referential film, drawing inspiration from every possible genre and adapting them into its own unique atmosphere. Now heading towards [[Cult Classic]] status in a latter day discovering of it by people who do actually understand what [[Zack Snyder]] is saying....and [[Rewatch Bonus|it's a lot to get your head around the first time]]: read below!
Ultimately, the film is a modern re-interpretation of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'', [[X Meets Y|mixing the classic story up]] with ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]''. ... If it were a video game. ... In slow-motion
Alternatively ''[[Inception]]'' [[X Meets Y|meets]] [[Emilie Autumn]]... [[Up to Eleven|made more challenging]]... [[Mind Screw|without a guide book]]...
[[Rule of Three|Alternatively]], the film can be described as ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' [[X Meets Y|meets]] ''[[300]]'', with [[
Look, it's just really hard to describe, okay?
In May 2021, Snyder confirmed that a director's cut of this film exists and that there are plans to release it.
{{Unmarked Spoilers}}
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** Also, the [[Aesop]] of the film: "You have all the weapons you need. Now fight." (Said by three different characters at three different times, including over the [[Fade to Black]] before the credits to the audience.)
* [[Attempted Rape]]: Blue almost {{spoiler|rapes Babydoll}} twice. Both time she defends herself. The Chef tries to rape Rocket after he catches her stealing food, but is stopped in time by Babydoll.
* [[Author Avatar]]: Several of Sweet Pea's lines reflect [https://web.archive.org/web/20110827191303/http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/interview-zack-snyder-on-the%20-sexuality-and-world-of-sucker-punch.php Zack Snyder's] view on the film.
{{quote|'''Zack Snyder:''' [Sweet Pea] says, "The dance should be more than just titillation; mine's personal," and that's exactly a comment on the movie itself. I think 90% are missing it or they just don't care. [...] The other line that I think is important is, as soon as the fantasy starts, there's that whole sequence where Sweet Pea breaks it down and says, "This is a joke, right? I get the sexy school girl and nurse thing, but what's this? A lobotimized vegetable? How about something more commercial?" That is basically my comment on the film as well. She's saying, "Why are you making this movie? You need to make a movie more commercial. It shouldn't be so dark and weird."}}
* [[Ambiguous Situation]]: Who's story were we told? What was real? What was a interpretation of the events? What is from Blue's perspective? What is from Babydoll's perspective? What was Sweet Pea's visualizations?
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* [[Badass]]: The third reality identities of the main characters.
* [[The Bechdel Test]]: Despite some critics using the film as a punching bag for sexism accusations, it passes, it passes quite cleanly actually too. Most of their conversations are about their plans and actions.
** [[
* [[Bedlam House]]: Lennox House. Mostly due to Blue. Madame Gorski wants to help as much as possible, though.
* [[
* [[Beauty Is Never Tarnished]]: No matter how rough the combat, even getting tagged in the face by a robot, the girls never show cuts, bruises or anything. {{spoiler|Of course, none of that was real.}}
** An interesting subversion when it comes to the subtext of the shot; in both of those scenes the girls are turning their objectification into a weapon against the people who view them as objects.
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** [[Sword and Gun]]: Babydoll's choice of weapons are a katana and an M1911.
** [[Sword Drag]]: The first Tengu in the Japan hallucination, with its Naginata.
** [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works]]: Averted twice once with Babydoll doing the throwing (but it distracts the Oni long enough to get shot in the face) and then in the Steampunk [[World War
* [[Cool Big Sis]]: Sweet Pea, who looks out for and protects her sister Rocket and the rest of the group, even though she hates all their plans.
** Babydoll is clearly this to her sister too.
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** ''"It is not dying."''
* [[Fire-Forged Friends]]: Before this whole thing, they never even knew each other, then they fight for the right to be treated like a human!
* [[Four
** Sweet Pea as the Cynic
** Rocket as the Optimist
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* [[Genre Busting]]: The movie is a complete [[Mind Screw]] that folds together [[Bedlam House]] escape drama and [[Refuge in Cool|insanely over-the-top]] sequences chock-full of tropes from the following genres:
** Samurai in the snow: [[Magical Girl]] [[Anime]]/[[Wuxia]]
** Trenches and zombies: [[Steampunk]]/[[
** Storming the dragon castle: Tolkienesque [[High Fantasy]]
** Bomb on a train: [[Sci Fi]]/[[Cyberpunk]]/action flicks featuring [[Runaway Train]]s.
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* [[Girlish Pigtails]]: Babydoll, rockin' them at age 20.
* [[Glasses Pull]]: Both Blue and Doctor Gorski put on reading glasses to take a closer look at some important detail, just before discovering something very important.
* [[Gorn]]: Surprisingly averted. Aside from ''[[Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole]]'', most Snyder films kick the [[Ludicrous Gibs|gibs-level to high gear.]] Here, all you have are chopping up robots and shooting steam powered WWI era German soldier zombies. Instead of blood, when they're shot they release the steam that allows them to move. Even in the Castle Storming sequence (when two Orcs are tossed into a propeller, and a dragon's throat is slit) the blood amount is minimum.
* [[Gratuitous German]]: The commander of the steampunk Reichswehr zombies speaks only this.
** His German is very good, actually. The only strange/weird thing was that he randomly switched between "du" and "Sie" (the casual and polite form of address, respectively) while talking to Babydoll.
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* [[Informed Ability]]: Because all of Babydoll's dance scenes segue into her crazy action imaginations, we have only other characters' reactions to support the conclusion that she could dance the pants off the High Roller.
** This may have been for a point, we don't see the apparently extremely sexy show BD puts on, and we see another kind of show instead..Which is aggressive and to explain their plan of escaping, or a metaphor/dream for their plan, or [[Rule of Three|her world in her head when she dances]]
* [[The Ingenue]]: Subverted with Babydoll. Asylum inmates deem her at first to be very docile,
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]: In the fantasy sequence.
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha]]: In the WWI sequence.
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* [[Molotov Cocktail]]
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: All over the place, but perhaps the most notable example comes from the Director's Cut, where {{spoiler|Babydoll meets the High Roller, and he is a charming gentleman, who she willingly begins to have sex with after he offers her the idea of the freedom within her own mind, only for a very lovely scene to be hard cut with the hammering of the spike as Babydoll is lobotomised.}}
* [[Mordor]]: The fantasy sequence takes place in a devastated volcano land with red burning skies. It's also full of [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Replete with fire-breathing dragons, orcs and knights.
* {{spoiler|[[Motherly Scientist]]: Psychologist, actually, but Dr. Gorski just the same}}.
* [[Mr. Exposition]]: Wiseman will always lay out the rules of each fantasy sequence ([[Rule of Cool|such as they exist]]), giving objectives as well as obstacles and limitations to Babydoll's basically limitless imagination.
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* [[Off-the-Shelf FX]]: Sweet Pea's sword is [http://www.casiberia.com/prod_Detail.aspx?id=SH2365 made by CAS Iberia].
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: Alan C. Peterson as the Mayor. In his brief appearance, he steals the scene with his utterly badass pimpin' entrance and [[Leitmotif]]: a mash-up of ''I Want It All'' and ''We Will Rock You''.
* [[One-Woman Wail]]: Heard in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100730084710/http://www.joblo.com/witness-sexy-action-girls-and-pure-madness-in-the-sucker-punch-teaser the trailer.] Featured in the soundtrack, except it's a sighing.
* [[Orange-Blue Contrast]]: Particularly with the dragon fire.
* [[Orderlies Are Creeps]]: Blue, especially. The rest of the orderlies are simply ominous, and {{spoiler|this gets hammered home in the real world -- Blue tries to rape a braindead Babydoll}}.
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** Dr. Gorski, in both the real world and as the dance instructor-cum-madam. She seems to genuinely care for her charges' well-being in both incarnations.
** The Wiseman in his bus driver incarnation.
* [[Recycled in Space]]: According to Zack, it's ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' {{
* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: The giant samurai's and [[Nazi Zombies]]'s eyes glow red.
* [[Red Herring]]:
** Sweet Pea carries a longsword in a back sheath in all of the action scenes (not to mention [
** Babydoll {{spoiler|being the protagonist of the story. It's really Sweet Pea.}}
* [[
* [[Revised Ending]]: This Director's Cut features [[The Reveal|the High Roller]] scene and the reveal and thusly the Sucker Punch of the entire purpose of this film.
* [[Recurring Riff]]: There's a [[One-Woman Wail|sighing woman]] who makes up most of the soundtrack, featured in "Sweet Dreams", "Where Is My Mind?", and "White Rabbit".
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* [[Say My Name]]: Rocket and Sweet Pea, when they're separated by the mooks in the WWI trenches; Rocket screams for Sweet Pea while barely fending off overwhelming numbers and Sweet Pea is yelling Rocket's name trying to get to her.
* [[Schizo-Tech]]: One sequence features WWI Tommies with their Lee-Enfields, bayonets, and Lewis guns fighting steam-powered zombie Germans with Mausers and Maxims, while bi/triplanes duel around giant zeppelins overhead. Into this, drop our protagonists, using, among other things, an M4 carbine, an MP5 SMG, and an M249 LMG, all with modern accessories, and ''a [[Mini-Mecha]] with a computerized display''. Oh, plus Rocket's flintlocks. The sequence afterward features the girls using a B-25 against a castle being besieged by knights, and the sequence after that has them using a Huey on a distant planet against a rocket train with robots with laser weaponry.
* [[Spiritual Successor]] / [[Spiritual Antithesis]]: Shares a lot in common and directly conflicts with [[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]], both about person who goes insane due to many MANY issues and changes the world through "characters" they imagined / imaginary friends, a guide, with help from a team, Sucker Punch is feminine focused, [[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]] is really masculine and violent. Fight Club is about too much of anything (Anti consumerism, inhibition) and Sucker Punch is also about that in a very different sense(Too much violence against woman will hurt you in the end/rape culture is bad/don't be a perve). Sucker Punch is all about the characters and their mental growth and goal getting, [[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]] is about the big theatrical audacity of the characters to do what they do. Both feature excessive metaphorical violence and both have an anti-accepted culture sentiment. (Rape Culture and mass consumerism mostly, but other side morals slipped in about [[I Just Want to Be Free|freedom]] as such)
* [[Seemingly-Wholesome Fifties Girl]]: All of the ladies actually.
* [[Taking the Bullet]]: {{spoiler|Rocket took the knife so Sweet Pea could live}}
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* [[The Walrus Was Paul]]: Nobody can quite understand this movie, not the first time around!
* [[Word of God]]: The director, writer, story creator and editor, has had to explain this movie to everybody and even then [[Hate Dumb|people refuse to understand]].
* [[X Meets Y]]: ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' meets ''[[300]]'', ''[[Kill Bill]]'' meets ''[[Inception]]'', ''Fight Club meets [[Inception]]'', ''[[Black Swan]]'' meets ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'', ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' meets ''[[Emilie Autumn]]'', ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'' Meets ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'', ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' meets ''[[The Matrix]]'', ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'' meets ''[[Emilie Autumn]]'', ''[[Emilie Autumn]]'' meets ''[[Inception]]'', ''[[300]]'' meets ''[[Black Swan]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy X-2]]'' meets ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]''.
* [[
* [[You Bastard]]: The nature of this movie is to highlight certain perverts natures and show that it can be changed, and that woman are more then their bodies. [[Zack Snyder]] said many things about this. Sweet Pea expresses this as the [[Author Avatar]], this is further proved by [[The Reveal|The High Roller]].
* [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]: Outright stated a couple of times.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Films of the 2010s]]
[[Category:Sucker Punch]]▼
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Psychological Thriller]]
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