WARNING: SPOILERS
One of the most highly anticipated films of 2011, Zak Snyder’s Sucker Punch is a complete and utter dud. Zack Snyder, of “300” and “Watchmen” fame, has created a film that is the perfect example of when style detrimentally trumps substance. Sucker Punch is the latest entry in a sub-genre of typically R-rated films where CGI and green screens are extensively used and the plot is a combination of graphic edginess, violence, sexuality and certain other film noir sensibilities. The trend unofficially began with “Sin City” in 2005, and the sub-genre enjoyed continued success with Snyder’s 2007 film “300”. Snyder gets that combination to work in “300” and the narrative’s origins as a graphic novel makes it perfectly appropriate for Snyder’s unique and adventurous style. But in Snyder’s original work of Sucker Punch, that style fails tremendously. Sucker Punch’s multi-layered world of realities appears inspired in part by Inception, but unfortunately, it’s completely devoid of the excitement and strong narrative that Inception possesses. The basic problem here is that Sucker Punch is not particularly graphic, edgy, or sexy. The decision to release it with a PG-13 rating boggles the mind for me, and it goes completely against what made “300” so successful. “300” is one of the highest grossing R rated films of all time which shows that the formula can be applied successfully, and I believe that the lack of subsequent success with Watchmen has some role behind the PG-13 rating. While Watchmen did do reasonably alright in the box office, it was not the cash cow that the studios envisioned it would be, and movie executives, perhaps afraid of a repeated failure, may have neutered Sucker Punch’s potential by trying to make the movie more accessible to younger audiences. The hope may have been that teens would be so enamoured by the film that they would come back in droves for multiple viewings.
Sucker Punch, at first glance, appears to offer so much, but it lets the audience down on multiple counts, especially by the twist we are subjected to at the unsatisfying end. The characters are uninteresting and cardboard thin and they are never fully or properly developed. The cast is bland and unexceptional, but they do what is expected of them, which isn't much. The main lead is Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who finds herself placed in an insane asylum by her evil step-father. He schedules her to have a lobotomy and pays off one of the orderlies (Oscar Isaac), who becomes the chief villain in the film. To escape that harsh reality, she imagines herself in an alternate reality where she becomes a dancer at a brothel. In this alternate reality, she must escape before a high roller arrives at the brothel and takes her away and she recruits fellow dancers Blondie and Amber as well as sisters Sweet Pea and Rocket to join her. Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) is the overprotective older sister and the leader of the group, and is initially unwilling to take part in the risky escape attempt. An underdeveloped sub-plot of discord between the two sisters is occasionally touched upon throughout the film, and Sweet Pea is threatened by Baby Doll’s risky actions that could potentially put her and Rocket (Jena Malone) in jeopardy. We never get to really know these characters or care for them. Here, it’s all about the visuals of the CGI rendered variety, whether it’s seeing a hot blonde in a school girl uniform acrobatically dodging massive Samurai armed with machine guns or seeing the girls fight in World War I trenches against undead German soldiers.
On a basic level, the film is reasonably entertaining but it quickly falls into a predictable formulaic and repetitive pattern in which Baby Doll must obtain a number of items on a list to help her escape. Baby Doll loses herself in other alternate realities to get those items, each of which has to be obtained in that different fictionalized setting. In these other alternate realities, Baby Doll and the other girls become gun wielding heroines with super human strength. There are blatant influences from “Lord of the Rings” and “I, Robot” amongst other movies in the various action packed segments, and people familiar with those films will definitely notice this. Although the CGI scenes are visually stunning, they aren’t particularly inspired or engrossing, and the movie falters for those very reasons. It isn’t engaging because we know there isn’t any tangible danger, there is no real threat, and we don’t care for any of the characters in the first place, and all of it is happening in someone’s mind anyway. What many filmmakers appear to not realize nowadays is that you can have all the explosions and cool stunts and effects you want but if there is no purpose or point behind it, it seems to be done just for its own self-masturbatory sake. Eventually, it leaves you bored and impatiently thinking: “Just get on with it already!”
There is a small group of hardcore fans of this film who will defend it with a passion on forums and who claim that a large degree of subtlety in the film has been lost on many people but those fans are looking for a transcendent quality in Sucker Punch that is deceptive and lacking. The main problem with this movie is that is tries to be something more than it actually is. This film doesn’t know what it wants to be or what age group it should appeal to; Sucker Punch tries to appeal to teenage boys at times, to teenage girls at other times, and at other times it becomes quite adult-oriented. There are few genuine shocks or surprises, but in the end, the film confusedly tries to add another layer in a twist of sorts. The big reveal is that Baby Doll is never the star of the story but rather, we were following Sweet Pea’s story all along. From the very start, we were apparently witnessing events from Sweet Pea’s eyes and all of the imaginings occur in her mind. The exact details of this are never really explained and we are supposed to just accept it in the end and think: Wow, this movie is so clever! It all makes sense now! What exactly happens in the asylum and the imagined world of the brothel now becomes very muddled and unclear, but apparently, that doesn’t matter as we are forced to accept it with no questions asked. The film tries to leave you with a message that champions the power of the mind and its ability to overcome adversity. In this way, Sucker Punch poses as a movie about self-empowerment, or more specifically, female empowerment, but in reality, all these themes are just tacked on to a narrative that is utterly lacking and paper thin for all intents and purposes. There are those who claim that the film is an interesting look at how the mind copes with stressful and traumatic situations, but the psychological aspect is completely devoid of purpose or depth in this film. The only reason the various settings utilized in the film are chosen is because they are supposed to be cool and this is a movie full of hot girls so obviously the filmmakers give them guns and sexy outfits and have them work as dancers in a brothel; there’s no subtle rationale for it at all.
On paper, Sucker Punch seemed like a cool concept that would bring thrills with a dash of outlandishness and exciting escapism, but in practice, it all melds together into an unsatisfying and uneasy concoction that is a complete waste of time.
C
Trailer:
Movie info:
Runtime: 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13
Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino, Vanessa Hudgens
Director: Zack Snyder
Screenplay: Zack Snyder & Steve Shibuya
Cinematography: Larry Fong
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