Sucker Punch (2011 film)

"This is your journey, if you succeed, it will set you free."

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

"Remember, don't ever write a check with your mouth you can't cash with your ass."

"For those who fight for it, life has a flavour the sheltered will never know."

"[after Babydoll has danced for the first time] All that gyrating and moaning... a dance should be more about titillation. Mine's personal, it says who I am. What the heck does yours say?"

"Everyone has an Angel. A Guardian who watches over us. We can't know what form they'll take, one day old man, next day little girl, but don't let appearances fool you. They can be as fierce as any dragon. Yet they're not here to fight our battles, but to whisper from our hearts. Reminding that it's us. Its every one of us who holds power over the world we create."

"We can deny angels exist; convince ourselves they can't be real. But they show up anyway, at strange places and at strange times. They can speak through any character we can imagine. They'll shout through demons if they have to, daring us, challenging us to fight!"

"And finally this question, the mystery of whose story it will be. Of who draws the curtain. Who is it that chooses our steps in the dance? Who drives us mad? Lashes us with whips and crowns us with victory when we survive the impossible? Who is it, that does all of these things?"

"Who honors those we love with the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us and at the same time sings that we'll never die? Who teaches us what's real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we'll die to defend? Who chains us and who holds the key to set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!"

"This is a joke, right? I get the sexy school girl and nurse thing, but what’s this? A lobotomized vegetable? How about something more commercial?"

"It's like we talked about. You control this world. Let the pain go, let the hurt go, let the guilt go. What you are imagining right now, that world you control. That place can be as real as any pain."

"If you do not dance you have no purpose. And we don't keep things here that have no purpose. You see, your fight for survival starts right now. You don't want to be judged? You won't be. You don't think you're strong enough? You are. You're afraid. Don't be. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight."

"You will be unprepared."

"A mind bending vision of reality from the director of Watchmen & 300."

"Emily Browning - Babydoll"

"Abbie Cornish - Sweet Pea"

"Jena Malone - Rocket"

"Vanessa Hudgens - Blondie"

"Jamie Chung - Amber"

"Carla Gugino - Madame Vera Gorski / Dr. Vera Gorski"

"Oscar Issac - Blue Jones"

"Jon Hamm - The Doctor / The High Roller"

"Scott Glenn - The Wise Man / The General / The Bus Drive"

"Gerard Plunkett - The Stepfather / Priest"

"Patrick Sabongui - Earl"

"Q: You have to perform this character in several different levels of fantasy and reality on top of all of the physical stuff. Is it extremely challenging?"

"Q: Each of the characters have a sort of iconography that goes along with them. Did you have any input on that and how do you feel about the schoolgirl aspect that you have going on?"

"Q: There are four action set pieces that we have been told about. What have you filmed already and can you talk about it?"

"Q: What is your connection to the other girls in the film?"

"You could say that Sucker Punch is a nymphet version of The Snake Pit or Shutter Island, or a live-action, green-screened redo of The Powerpuff Girls, or Black Swan (Carla Gugino has the demanding dance master role here) with a higher nightmare quotient, or an $82 million tribute to Jess Franco’s sublimely cheesy women-in-prison movies of the ’70s, or an Americanization of Norifumi Suzuki “pinky violence” melodramas (Girl Boss Guerrilla, Sex and Fury) of the same decade, or, in its backstory about a decent girl deprived of her inheritance and consigned to grow up in a prisonlike environment, a gloss on mid-19th-century classics from Jane Eyre to Little Dorrit. With the action scenes playing like production numbers in some high-concept musical, you’ll be reminded of Julie Taymor’s Beatles fantasia, Across the Universe. The visual palette suggests the creepy pastel paintings of Guy Peellaert (Rock Dreams); the fantasy battles with monsters and samurais echo the muscular landscapes of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. The movie is like an arrested adolescent’s Google search run amok. The teen boy who would get lost in that cyber wonderland — he’s also Sucker Punch‘s target demographic — is meant to fixate on the five girls who go questing. Known only by their prostitute pseudonyms, they include whey-haired sisters Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and Rocket (Jena Malone), a brunette called Blondie (High School Musical‘s Vanessa Hudgens) and the Asian Amber (Jamie Chung). Snyder doesn’t bother much with differentiating these four, as they may simply be personalities fever-dreamed by Baby Doll. That’s Browning, who with the giant eyes, puffy lips and fake eyelashes could be her own anime doll, the whole package dressed in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit as retailored by Victoria’s Secret."

"Q: While we already sort of know the character you play, could you talk about who you play in the film?"

"Q: We were kind of talking about this at lunch today. The design of these characters and your character, the dominatrix kind of thing. We’ve heard ‘empowerment’ mentioned in terms of these characters, but they look a little more like ideals…"

"Q: As actors, I would assume that you have some freedom to sort of explore and dig into your real world characters. But when you cross over into this other world, do you have to be careful to sort of do your preparation through the prism of how Baby Doll would see or imagine you? Does it force you to understand her character more, as well as your own?"

"Q: Can you talk about your reactions when you first the saw costumes you’d be wearing?"

"Q: Could you talk a little bit about your dance scene today, Jena?"

"Q: What are your characters’ relationships to Baby Doll?"

"Q: Why are your characters in the asylum?"

"Q: Could you talk about the costumes that you wear in the film?"

"Q: What are your thoughts on how Zack Synder writes women?"

"Actually, the whole film is a surgical strike on your visual senses and intellectual faculties. Snyder’s efforts to have you believe this is some kind of empowering, riot-grrls-together redemption story would be more convincing if the cameras didn’t slather quite as droolingly whenever the women, clad in fishnets and schoolgirl outfits, come into view. The men, meanwhile, are a one-dimensional army of lechers, paedophiles, rapists and misogynists. The standard defence for this kind of film is that it’s not meant to be analysed too closely, it’s only entertainment. With Sucker Punch, you could also say that its narrative slackness is down to its themes (mental instability) and to the way that it taps into the dream logic of gamer culture. But even its battle scenes are deadly boring. If I had to choose between this and the most bog-standard computer game, it wouldn’t be any contest at all."

"You could go to see “Sucker Punch” this weekend — a lot of people probably will, and a few may even admit as much back at the office on Monday — or you could try to make it yourself, which might be more fun, though not necessarily cheaper. Here’s what you will need: a bunch of video-game platforms; DVDs of “Shutter Island,” “Kill Bill,” “Burlesque” and “Shrek”; some back issues of Maxim; a large bag of crystal meth; and around $100 million. Your imagination will take care of the rest."

"Yes, Snyder’s Sucker Punch heroines, the patients at a mental hospital, are relatively thinly-sketched. Yes, in the fantasy world they enter to battle for their freedom, their outfits are not, shall we say, practical. But at the time Sucker Punch came out, it was the rare movie with a female lead to come out of Warner Brothers, Snyder’s longtime studio. Even rarer, it was an original action movie starring women."

"Interviewer: Would you say the film is a critique on sexist geek culture?"

"Interviewer: I thought it was basically you commenting on those attendants at Comic-Con who shout, “You’re hot!” at beautiful cast members."

"Interviewer: Is it wrong to enjoy seeing Babydoll in that school girl outfit, though?"

"Interviewer: Did you think a lot in the writing process, “Would a woman say this?”"

"Interviewer: Most female action heroines are generally interchangeable with men. Can you talk about the process of finding that specific female voice?"

"Interviewer: I’m curious, if you don’t mind talking about it, what was the originally shot and intended ending?"