This review is going to be messy and unpredictable, not necessarily for you the reader, but rather for me. I've seen this film several times and while I can say it's definitely not great I just can't figure out where it falls beyond that. It was probably aiming for a similar message of female empowerment to Fury Road, but it didn't quite hit its mark...
This review is going to be messy and unpredictable, not necessarily for you the reader, but rather for me. I've seen this film several times and while I can say it's definitely not great I just can't figure out where it falls beyond that. It was probably aiming for a similar message of female empowerment to Fury Road, but it didn't quite hit its mark...
My History / Almost entirely disinterested.
Skipped it in theatres, skipped it for a long time afterwards based on the reviews, finally cracked because it looked so different. And that's a thing it definitely is.
To give a bit of context I don't normally give (and, admittedly, to pad this section out a bit), this film did not do well. It just about broke even money-wise (always a boring way to look at films, but not unimportant), but critics tore it to pieces. Sometimes because they were personally offended by it.
So why can't I make up my mind about it?
Plot summary / Where do I even begin...
Babydoll is sent to an insane asylum by her monstrous stepfather after the death of her sister. In her grief she imagines the asylum to be a number of other things, from a brothel to a Buddhist temple to a number of warscapes.
Within the imagined world of the brothel she makes friends and formulates a plan of escape, with each further alternate world being an additional layer of delusion that is used to secure an ingredient for the escape plan.
In the end one of her friends does escape (in what is presumably the real world) and Babydoll is lobotomised.
Roll credits.
Corner 1: Adventure 6.5/10 / "You have all the weapons you need. Now fight."
- 🚀 Each alternate world is its own little encapsulated story, and most of them are pretty cool!
- 🚀 Giant samurai with miniguns, robot train guards, a dragon. Yeah, this all works.
- 📋 Real world and brothel world are total downers though. And by that I mean they are seriously disturbing and messed up.
- 📋 And the cool segments are all so short that you barely notice that they don't really have a plot or make sense.
- 🚀 Each alternate world is its own little encapsulated story, and most of them are pretty cool!
- 🚀 Giant samurai with miniguns, robot train guards, a dragon. Yeah, this all works.
- 📋 Real world and brothel world are total downers though. And by that I mean they are seriously disturbing and messed up.
- 📋 And the cool segments are all so short that you barely notice that they don't really have a plot or make sense.
Corner 2: Smart 3/10 / "The fifth thing is a mystery."
- 💡 Ooh, dreams within dreams. Like Inception!
- 💤 ...Inception made a lot more sense than this though.
- 💤 The idea is that the goal of each mini story is a parallel to the brothel world equivalent of the group getting the ingredient, but it doesn't quite come together.
- 💡 Ooh, dreams within dreams. Like Inception!
- 💤 ...Inception made a lot more sense than this though.
- 💤 The idea is that the goal of each mini story is a parallel to the brothel world equivalent of the group getting the ingredient, but it doesn't quite come together.
Corner 3: Heart 1.5/10 / "Put her in the goddamn chair!"
- 💖 There is at least implied comeuppance for the stepfather.
- 💔 Filled to the brim with implied rape and abuse from start to finish.
- 💔 Even if you try to look past that it's still a gruesome and dark story.
- 💔 ...where shallow female characters are paraded around in sexy outfits.
- 💔 ...and meet bad endings.
- 💔 AND one of the imagined worlds is a WWI parallel. Not even a Steampunk flair could save it from being a negative.
Yeesh, that turned out harsher than I expected. I guess what fondness I do have for the film is just riding off of the back of the cool visuals of (most of) the imagined mini worlds and how cool they look.
I guess at least The Road has some company down at the bottom of the rankings now...
- 💖 There is at least implied comeuppance for the stepfather.
- 💔 Filled to the brim with implied rape and abuse from start to finish.
- 💔 Even if you try to look past that it's still a gruesome and dark story.
- 💔 ...where shallow female characters are paraded around in sexy outfits.
- 💔 ...and meet bad endings.
- 💔 AND one of the imagined worlds is a WWI parallel. Not even a Steampunk flair could save it from being a negative.
Yeesh, that turned out harsher than I expected. I guess what fondness I do have for the film is just riding off of the back of the cool visuals of (most of) the imagined mini worlds and how cool they look.
14.61
At least the Adventure corner pulled it into double digits...
I don't necessarily mind it if a film deals with heavy subjects, but this was clearly not the way to do it.
Actually, let's aim for a sad thing done right next.
I don't necessarily mind it if a film deals with heavy subjects, but this was clearly not the way to do it.
Actually, let's aim for a sad thing done right next.
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