Sucker Punch

[EthanRunt]

I'm not sure how critics will be reacting in terms of audience reaction, I know a lot of the guys are on the geekier side of film critiquing, and I know that in February the film did not test well at all, but I still have hopes for it being an entertaining 110 minutes of slow motion, skimpy clothing, dragons, armies, samurai, robots, Russian Carla Gugino and, as always, Jon Hamm. So, you know, fingers crossed it's not just a lazy version of what could be an hysterically entertaining premise.

[raj101]

when theres no definition of laws of physics and no limits to human ability in the film, its hard to connect with it becos if its all imaginar, then you can win in any imaginary situation...just imagine you've won!

in the matrix movie there were defined barriers to the hyperreality - if you die in the matrix then you die in the real world. but here theres no set barriers and no benchmark of mortality for the audience to recognise.

[kevinknapman]

when theres no definition of laws of physics and no limits to human ability in the film, its hard to connect with it becos if its all imaginar, then you can win in any imaginary situation...just imagine you've won!

Yes but that's all in the head of the main character, who is unstable and most likely insane. There's still the reality (the asylum) they are trying to escape from where the danger is presumably all too real.

Anyway, I'm seeing it tonight so I'll let you know.

[weirdfilms33]

Wow. I just saw Sucker Punch's RottenTomatoes score. Maybe I'm not going to see it after all.

[EthanRunt]

*Head in hands* More people I trust are talking about the film in ways that freak me out. I should never b*y a ticket to a film in advance again. Oh god, what have I done?

[weirdfilms33]

*Head in hands* More people I trust are talking about the film in ways that freak me out. I should never b*y a ticket to a film in advance again. Oh god, what have I done?

Oh, I'm sure you can just enjoy the visual side of things. No need to worry.

[kevinknapman]

There was a hope, when watching the incoherent messy trailers for Sucker Punch, that the finished result would just be fun. An adrenalin fueled blast of eye-candy that would overcome any other faults it might have.
Sadly, the film just turns out to be a chaotic, self indulgent mess and not half as fun as you wish it would be.

The main problem is the fantasy element, supposedly in the head of the central character of Baby Doll. Not once are you remotely convinced that these are the fantasies of a 20 year-old woman but rather those of the very male Zack Snyder. At the start to escape from the realities of the asylum, Baby Doll imagines she's actually in a brothel/burlesque club. Seriously. What kind of 20 year old women does Snyder hang out with?
This fantasy continues for the rest of the film, interspersed with yet another layer of fantasy. In which Baby Doll and some of the other girls in the asylum have to fight giant Samurai, clockwork soldiers, dragons and robots, whilst dressed in skimpy low cut dresses. The exact reasons for this are too tedious to go into, but involves getting 5 things that will help Baby Doll escape and avoid getting a lobotomy. Basically it goes like this, in the brothel fantasy, she distracts the bad guys by dancing (yes, really) so one of the other girls can get the item they need. We don't see this however, as it cuts to the other fantasy at this point. Apparently Baby Doll is an amazing dancer but we never see this. It's one of many, laughable aspects of the film.

The very first fantasy scene starts with Army of Me by Bjork on the soundtrack, the first appearance of Scott Glenn as a wise man, who explains what she has to do, a battle between Baby Doll and three giant Samurai then Bjork on the soundtrack again. By the time the scene got to the end my first thought wasn't 'This is cool' but 'This is supposed to be cool isn't it?' and that's pretty much how I felt about the whole thing. The action in all these scenes just seem to go on forever. Relentless and tedious. By the time they've killed the 100th soldier or the 100th robot I just didn't care. They also seem to have little relation to the other fantasy. Only once do they converge and that's when something goes wrong. If they'd done it more often it might have been easier to have some kind of emotional connection to it, but you don't.

So are there any plus points? Yes I suppose there are. The visuals are often arresting and very impressive but it doesn't matter when they're applied to such a inert story and rubbish script. Some of the acting is okay. Although Emily Browning as Baby Doll is a bit vacant at times, especially when she starts to do her amazing dance (you'll think she's had the lobotomy already), I really liked Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish as sisters Rocket and Sweet-Pea (yes the names are laughable too) who frankly deserve better than the material they're given here. Oh and Jon Hamm is fantastic, such a shame he's in it for less than two minutes though. Scott Glenn is okay but his role just get's more comical as he pops up in the second fantasy scenes to give poorly scripted advice ("Don't ever write a cheque with your mouth that you can't cash with your ass". Gee thanks Scott). Carla Gugino does her best with a dodgy Polish accent and the less said about Vanessa Hugdens, Jamie Chung and Oscar Isaac the better.

On the whole, Sucker Punch is an incredibly self-indulgent film. It's a bold and ambitious film for sure and It's admirable that a film so stuffed with ideas could get the green light from a major Hollywood studio, but disappointing that the result is so poor, basically a fault of the script. It looks like Snyder and his co-writer just had a white board on which they wrote 'cool things we'd like to see in a movie' and just based the film around that. Curiously it reminded me of another self-indulgent vanity piece, that of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, from the film opening on the proscenium arch of a theatre through to the popular songs covered by some of the cast and the almost comically grotesque bad guys. But despite it's faults I actually enjoyed Moulin Rouge. Sucker Punch never goes full-on musical though, except for a scene over the end credits, with Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac belting out Roxy Music's 'Love is the Drug'.

So there you go, a self-indulgent messy chaotic review for a self indulgent messy chaotic film. Quite fitting I feel. One thing this does show I suppose is that even if you love it or hate it, there's still plenty to say about it. Which is something I guess.

[Kaybeelon]

Thanks for that great review, KK. You have probably prevented me from wasting 1.5 hours of my life - plus travel!
(Would anyone like my tickets?)

[Yinster]

Each to their own. Whilst the write ups haven't been all that great, I'm quite looking forward to it on Thursday.

[funthing29]

Excellent review, kk, but I've come to expect that from you!

Tbh, this is exactly the type of film I am expecting. The trailers make it look like a film with more special effects than brains so I'm going to watch it for the fantasy action scenes alone.

If I were a guy I'm sure I could drum up extra reasons to watch this for obvious reasons.