THE OPENING CREDITS SET TO A NIRVANA SONG...NOT PERFORMED BY NIRVANA.😣
YOU PAY FOR THE COBAIN...OR YOU ABSTAIN.
shareI found this version to have a better sound compared to the original.
shareI thought it sounded terrible. It was similar to the covers found in movies like Sucker Punch where they slow things down to sound creepy.
shareThere's a whole style of these types of covers that's pretty popular nowadays. I'm actually a pretty big fan. Atomic Blonde used a great one for luftballoons.
shareTHE KAELIDA COVER OF 99 LUFTBALLOONS IS COOL...THE CRAPPY COVER OF NIRVANA IN BLACK WIDOW IS NOT COOL.
sharePoint taken.
I liked this cover enough as background music for the intro, but I never bothered to look it up myself. Wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it, unlike some other tracks in Sucker Punch, or the kaleida of luftballoons which I do genuinely enjoy.
I actually own the Sucker Punch soundtrack album. It's pretty good.
shareSame here lmao. That's some good shit :D A zach snyder movie where his soundtrack DOESNT annoy me.
shareIt's great. Sucker Punch had a great soundtrack; fantastic, imaginative art direction; cool settings for its dreamscapes; and basically everything except character and plot, both of which were lackluster. It was when I started to think of Snyder as a great guy to have designing a film, but maybe not directing...
shareSucker Punch: The death-dream portrayal of a story from a supporting character's perspective. I thought it was fairly sophisticated underneath the soft-core. Snyder is hit/miss in all categories. Sometimes inspired and sometimes off the rails.
... and yeah, pretty good sound track.
I thought the story was better than critics said it was, but far less than it could have been, and I think Snyder had bigger plans for it than he pulled off.
Saying it like that - death-dream of a supporting character - sounds like a great framing device for a movie, but the execution still didn't work for me.
I think a LOT for me comes down to the characters. It's a pretty basic plot (escape!) that's layered in all these cool, comic book elements and a couple levels of reality and perspective. All that is fine, but when I dig through the layers I find, "Hero character," and "troubled character," and "supporting people". If the characters were more interesting, and as layered as the realities, it'd be a much better movie.
Put it this way, I remember Babydoll and Sweetpea by name, but it takes me a minute to recall the name "Rocket" (although I remember the character), and the others I can't really remember at all. One I basically remember 'cause she often had a lollipop (I wonder why they chose to do that...? Hm? (Kojack reference...?)) But they didn't have distinct enough personalities and traits.
Contrast this to the crew of the Serenity in Firefly, or the cast of Cowboy Bebop. Think about Ocean's 11. Despite having less screentime (in many instances) the Ocean's 11 guys are more memorable because the characters pop more.
Without connecting to those characters, the trappings of the film aren't as full as they could have been, and I wind up feeling like some element was missing.
Furthermore, the fantasies could have been much better explorations of the psyches of the characters if they put more into those characters' personalities. As-is, they're awesome comic book-style action scenes, but they're levels in a video game, and maybe I missed it, but I don't think they symbolize Jungian archetypes or create a map of the human brain or anything. Maybe I'm wrong, and please correct me if I am.
Again: I'm not saying it sucked. I rather enjoy the film. And, again: I do think it's deeper than critics said, and it's not just an ordinary action movie - it is kinda special. I guess I just get disappointed because of the HUGE potential that was only partly fulfilled. I keep thinking about the "could have" instead of the "is", and that takes the movie down a peg or two.
I agree that it was a few pegs below what it could have been. I think that what might have started off as subtle hints at personalities via symbolism (perhaps the lollypop indicated that her perception of that girl was that she was far too young even among the young ones there). Though there were internal reasons for the over-sexualization, it steered into the sexualization rather than the tragic reasons.
I totally agree with you about the lack of character development. Though I would have liked more intricacies with the players, I settled comfortably in as the viewer of a chaotic death-dream with throw away characters painting a sad picture. I gave it the art-house-film pass. (I wonder if fleshed out characters would have clashed with the style. Like a realistic human painted into an impressionistic work.)
Excellent post. Great perspective. Reminded me it's probably time to rewatch Firefly again.
P.S. Did you like the live Bebop?
I was mostly joking. The lollipop symbolized that she was sucking on something. So, yeah, it was definitely full-steam-ahead-ing into sexualizing her. I'm not saying that's bad and I'm a prude, I'm just saying it stopped there.
See, and if the film had found ways to show us her character as being really young, even for the creep-fest going on in the film, that lollipop could have been so much better. If the film made her the most sexual of all of them - screamingly so - and made us all drool a little bit... then threw in the lollipop... but then pulled the rug out with them finding her file while raiding an office: we suddenly find out she's fifteen (or fourteen - waaaayyy too young, anyway) and now we all feel a little sick. The movie made us leer and then caused us to question that leer. Simultaneously, by making her the most provocative one, it would show the kind of psyche damage that happens during abuse. This person is desperately trying to cope and she's breaking by overcompensating.
But we didn't get any of that. We just got the lollipop.
They needn't be "realistic" but just more interesting and deeper. I wouldn't describe some of Tarantino's characters as "realistic", but they're almost always so interesting.
Funnily enough, I gave Sucker Punch the popcorn-flick pass. Kinda the opposite. I lament the potential, but enjoyed the candy (lollipops?) that was there. It's cool watching sexy badasses kill steampunk WWI zombies with mech suits and samurai swords. Just writing that makes me want to watch that again.
I just didn't want to have to give it a "pass". I wanted to walk out of the cinema roaring at how intricate that movie was.
I think in the synthesis of our two "passes" lies the truth: it's a movie that tried to be equally popcorn and arthouse. It wound up rising above one and falling short of the other, but that in-between-ness makes it a servant trying to serve two masters, and it doesn't manage to pull it off.
I didn't watch the live Bebop. A friend who hasn't seen the cartoon thought it was good, and another who loves the cartoon was very disappointed. It suggests that it's a good show but doesn't recreate the Bebop vibe enough to be fun for fans, so I gave it a pass.
I went into live Bebop very skeptical. But ended up liking it. It actually captures the vibe fairly well. Not a perfect show by any means but I would have watched a 2nd season. You should give it a shot.
I had several nit-picks but my biggest problem was at the end when SPOILERS .....
...... when they reveal Ed. Utterly disappointed in their Ed.
Maybe I'll check it out sometime. Thanks for the extra review!
shareI thought it was terrible as well, and I'm not much of a fan of the original. It became common place years ago (90's? 2000's?) to take upbeat or hard rock songs, and then have them performed in some slow dirge manor, just like this. That practice really wore out its welcome long ago, so it surprised me to see a director in a modern film pull that junk.
But hey, this movie's for "girl power", so gotta swap Cobain for Malia J.
🤢
shareI don't remember it, but I'd say you're probably right. Wouldn't be hard to sound better.
shareIt was good,but the video with it made it better.
https://youtu.be/XIVAdu29w7k