Review of Sucker Punch (2011) by Ws W — 11 Sep 2015

I personally love it. Like any good action film, the plot is as much ballet as exposition. And like the David Lynch film it wishes it were, you have to enjoy Sucker Punch on the level of an experience rather than a cogent narrative of events. Taken as a trip into the self, Sucker Punch is a deep dive that offers an amazing sense of redemption through ego annihilation that is neither nihilistic nor fatalistic. Really amazing stuff.

Seon Buddhist Monk Woncheol once said "Myth is not just an event of long ago. Rather, myth is another reality, one that we are facing right now. It is our everyday life. By realizing this and treating myth in this way, we are serving its true purpose." Sucker Punch is an attempt to take that concept of myth and apply it to a horrifically dark situation. People every day find themselves stuck under the thumbs of others and trapped in unresolvable situations. Through myth, we can escape, fight back, find our own strength and even, when the time comes, accept our fate. This movie tells a story so primal to the human experience that I think many missed its depth.