A cacophonous disaster wrapped in movie-parts and teen flesh, Sucker Punch says what it does and does what it says – and that ain’t good. This is blunt-force-trauma filmmaking, if the filmmaking descriptor can be applied at all. Mr. Ebert, this is your cue: video games, indeed, can’t be art.
In Sucker Punch, a platinum-blonde waif called Baby Doll gets locked up in a mental institution and is scheduled for a lobotomy. For reasons no one can explain – because there are, of course, no reasons – she proceeds to invent an elaborate fantasy landscape which, if navigated successfully, will allow her to escape from prison. This torturous setup allows director Zack Snyder to stage a series of “levels” for Baby Doll and her team of fellow inmates to play their way through, each with a default piece of random PlayStation symbology as a goal: a map, a key, a flame, etc.
And as anyone who has seen any of his previous films would attest, if there is one thing Zack Snyder has very clearly been itching to do from the moment he picked up a handicam, it’s shoot a bunch of action sequences that are unbound by any rhyme or reason other than the need to be the batshit-cooliest video game levels you’ve ever fuckin’ seen, man. With subtlety thrown clean out with the bathwater, he turns each orgy of action into a veritable burlesque routine, as Baby Doll’s baby-doll schoolgirl outfit flaps and flutters, flashing tantalizing glimpses of sweet teen ass and creamy white thighs even while our doughty hero is chopping, hacking, and kicking her way into pure post-feminist action icon status.
But wait. Explain it to me again: Baby Doll is in a mental institution, and in that mental institution, she is imagining that she is part of a dance troupe, and in that dance troupe, she is imagining that she is fighting giant megazords from beyond space, dressed in a kilt and halter top. And beating the level boss at the end of the gorgeously-visualized, punishingly uninvolving action sequence that is three levels deep in the delusions of an incarcerated girl puts that girl one step closer to freedom from the mental institution exactly how?
Wait again. Any movie action sequence I’ve ever seen, and even something as pointless and facile as a level in a video game, has rules… but if nearly everything that happens in Sucker Punch happens in Baby Doll’s imagination, what then? The imagination, by definition, has no rules, and movies without rules, by definition, are not interesting. Or in other words, if anything can happen, why do I care why anything is happening?
Sucker Punch makes exactly this much no-sense-at-all, and is bound up meanwhile in piss-poor dialogue and performances that embarrass every actor who opens his or her mouth. For the first half of the picture, the action sequences and musical montages are welcome respites from all the humiliating attempts at conversation; but by around the middle of Baby Doll’s efforts to win World War I with the aid of a kendo sword and a giant robot rabbit, I was pretty sick of the non-talking scenes, too. The video game levels become so formulaic – introduced with a cover song, extroed with a reprise of same – that any “wow, shit, look at that!” I might have felt when Baby Doll first suited up in her sexywear and took on a Japanese castle – admittedly, the movie’s single genuine triumph – gave way to the red-faced shame of a post-fuck john.
The fault lies entirely with Mr. Zack Snyder, who built this mishmash from the ground up, a cinematic Frankenstein’s monster, all repurposed carcass and entrails with no sense to do anything besides emit its turbulent wail. For all his painfully gleaming pride in the result, Snyder has done little more than construct yet another cruel death fantasy to sell to little girls in the guise of an empowerment kick, and for that he should be ashamed of himself. The masturbatory excess in every frame of Sucker Punch, the block-capitals ART DIRECTION that reeks neither of organic concept nor judicious aesthetic, but rather a pubescent boy’s interest in boobies and vaginas and things that kill other things, would be little more than a pathetic window into a pathetic mind were it not so casually mean-spirited in its final calculation. Sucker Punch crushes down with a climax so hateful and oldschool-sexist that it colours every single thing that comes before, up to and including the phenomenal quantity of information I now have about Emily Browning’s crotch, in the charcoal shades of outright predation, inviting yet another generation of teenage girls to believe that the only way out is through self-annihilation. Why don’t you just hand them a razor blade while you’re at it, Zack? This is a mean, ugly, stupid movie.
Depressing that Abbie Cornish followed up her break-out performance in Bright Star with this.
If its as bad as you say then that’s truly disappointing for a film that seemed to promise so much. Must say that the tone of this review is incredibly angry, aggressive even – it obviously really rubbed you up the wrong way. And I must say, your final 3-4 lines read distinctly like a spoiler.
Sam – it didn’t rub me the wrong way. It’s just a bad movie. This isn’t personal.
Also, there is nothing that I refer to in my final 4 lines that is not revealed in the first ten minutes of the film.
Abbie Cornish is flat out TERRIBLE here. As is just about everyone. Jenna Malone comes out the least tarred and feathered with bad dialogue and pseudo-gravitas. And while Carla Gugino might have had the weakest performance in the quite well cast WATCHMEN, she is probably the strongest performance here, if only because her character has actual SCENES.
Because Matt’s review is (per usual) much better than mine, I’ll not publish my thoughts (which echo the above), but rather link to where it is published at TWITCH.
http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2011/03/sucker-punch-review-1.php
Fair enough Matt but I think your choice of diction and near constant referrals back to Snyder make it sound very personal indeed. Many thanks for clarifying your final lines, much appreciated.
Sorry to steal your thunder, Kurt. (Or your piss and vinegar.) Everyone go read Kurt’s review!
“Sucker Punch crushes down with a climax so hateful and oldschool-sexist that it colours every single thing that comes before, up to and including the phenomenal quantity of information I now have about Emily Browning’s crotch, in the charcoal shades of outright predation, inviting yet another generation of teenage girls to believe that the only way out is through self-annihilation.”
I can’t understand a word of whats being said.
thus not a spoiler
No, Matt, sir, It is my pleasure. Glad to see your fine writings gracing Rowthree on a Regular basis. Bravo!
Done. My ten dollars will now to go Jane Eyre.
Zak Snyder just keeps on rolling down hill doesn’t he? Dawn of the Dead is a solid (though far from perfect) remake. 300 had it’s moments but on rewatch is pretty boring. Watchmen is a total and complete mess and now this.
I do look forward to checking out the Owls of Gahoule movie though.
I fell asleep – twice – during Ga’Hoole. It was quite pretty though.
Actually, I became sleepy in 300 and Watchmen too, now that I think about it. Not the case with Sucker Punch, which was more like sustaining repeated jabs to the head by Clubber Lang for nearly two solid hours.
I’m with Matt and Kurt. What a bunch of rubbish. I will disagree though with Cornish. For me she was the only one I didn’t cringe at. Gugino’s accent is god awful. Why was it even necessary?? Oh I forgot, just for shits and giggles. LAME.
Andrew – you will not be disappointed in JANE EYRE. It’s not even in the same stratosphere as this pile or rubbish.
And what’s worse, there are morons who are actually defending this shit. And morons is NOT too harsh. Anyone who defends this by saying there’s “more to it” deserves the moniker.
You mean it is not a strong pro-feminist statement satirically veiled within a fanboy wetdream?
I don’t know who to believe.
I think Harry Knowles officially jumped the shark with this tweet:
http://twitter.com/headgeek666/status/51014856383541248
Might as well have added “get off my lawn, you kids!”
I saw that tweet this morning before I wrote my review. I wanted to reach through the screen and punch him in the face for making this shit acceptible. I wrote my review with that tweet in mind just so no one could say that I “didn’t get it”. Oh I got it alright and it’s still shit.
Kurt hated this movie so much that he posted twice on Badassdigest (I like Devin Faraci, but that is horrible domain name).
I just happened to catch Devin as he posted the review (Twitter update), and I thought I’d comment, but my comment was censored, so I had to ‘negotiate’ half of what was cut off. I guess my tone was negative enough to not engage him, although I stand by that the last paragraph of his review is condescending as hell.
And like the folks over at AICN, they are over-thinking a film that clearly has little other than ‘cool factor’ and sexy chick on the brain. I”m not buying the ‘all men use women subtext’ as being particularly well developed in the film.
From Roeper’s review:
With her short skirt swirling about and her midriff exposed, Babydoll slices and dices and shoots her way through a series of battle zones, from a World War I tableau complete with zeppelins to a gunfight with dead German soldiers who have been regenerated (huh?) to a fire-breathing dragon that seems to have flown in from another movie. …
Rated PG-13, “Sucker Punch” wants us to sympathize with the plight of these oppressed women even as it delights in showcasing their assets. The voiceover speaks of empowerment and finding your inner strength, but the screen is filled with highly digitized images of young women in high heels and short skirts wielding giant guns as they mow down the opposition. By the time Jon Hamm shows up as the High Roller and we learn there’s more to his character than meets the eye, we’re long past the point of trying to figure out which alternate reality is the real reality – and long past the point of caring.
But wait – Jon Hamm is in this supposed mess? Tear.
Hamm is in there only very briefly. Oddly enough, he is the closest character to being a human being in the entire film.
(A point that Gamble completely missed in his review, here — http://wherethelongtailends.com/archives/sucker-punch
Hamm has a scene or two on the cutting room floor from what I’ve read, but he will appear on the R rated DC on Blu when that comes up in a couple of months. I had little interest in this film to begin with (the trailers were terrible), but if I were to watch this film, I would be watching the R rated version.
Hamm is in there only very briefly. Oddly enough, he is the closest character to being a human being in the entire film.
Except he’s a guy who’s paid to do black market lobotomies. He’s most certainly as much of a monster as any of the others.
So….can we have that R rated DC in theaters instead of what’s coming out now?
*MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS**MAJOR SPOILERS*
I never got that he did ‘black market LOBjobs’ He was just the expert they called in from time to time when they needed one done. After all, he confessed he didn’t like doing them, and the orderly had to forge a signature to get it done. I think the film was set somewhere in the 50s or 60s and Lobotomies were a fact of life. But I digress, I’ve wasted too much time on SUCKERPUNCH already today. I wish HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN were playing in the States, and I hope people spend their money on that film, which is a heck of a lot more fun than Sucker Punch. It also had a hard R, and doesn’t have to hide under PG-13 (albeit Sucker Punch is about as far as I’ve seen the PG-13 rating stretched in some time!)
Hamm’s sex scene was cut from the film, and the fact he’s portrayed throughout the film as the most depraved of the high rollers to come through also heavily implies he’s as deviant as the rest of the males. Add in that he’d have to turn a blind eye to what is going on in the facilities and the complete lack of verification in his task of removing a person’s soul (or if you want to be literal, his circumcizing a woman’s sexuality) makes him out to be a monster in the film. He’s just a good looking one.
Really the only saving grace for the male gender is Scott Glenn as the angel, but even he is a neutered character who is kept on a different pedestal than the rest of the men.
Glenn’s inane ‘advice’ is totally useless in the film, I’m not sure if it is a happy accident that they are howlers, or if it was intentionally put in there as a joke. Ditto the final narration.
Aint It Cool is so far up this thing’s ass they’re at risk of toxic urethritis.
Scott Glenn, who I adore, chews his way through his truly pointless and thankless scenes as well as he can under the circumstances.
They should have just used a digitally resurrected David Carridine (ala Brando in Superman Returns, or Olivier in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) for Glenn’s character. That is obviously what they were going for in the movie. His character is bad.
God, I should be watching eXistenZ or something. Is it weird that Cronenberg has made the best ‘video-game’ movie up to this point?
I have not seen the film yet, but sadly I think I will…. when it gets to the 4.75 theatre. Yet, last night before Hobo With a Shot Gun, I was in stitches listening to Marina’s Hubby doing play by play on Suckerpunch. Pure comic gold, and sounds like a better deal than paying full price.