Sucker Punch Review -- Ass & Tits The Video Game

Meet Emily Browning. She plays Baby Doll in Sucker Punch and is absolutely riveting -- as an avatar of how not to portray a female protagonist in an action film.
Zak Snyder’s Sucker Punch features five scantly clad women fighting hordes of enemies in slow motion. That’s it. There is nothing more. There is no story of worth. There is no logical character progression. There is no reason to invest time in a story more jarring than the garish amounts of eye makeup worn by each actor. That’s right, even the men. There no reason to listen to the witless dialog, because the Forever 21 soundtrack never shuts off. If you got nervous about Zak Snyder’s take on Superman: Man Of Steel after watching Sucker Punch, I’m presuming you’re not the only one.

Sucker Punch is a video game. Not in the herp derp video games have awful plots manner. I mean a very literal sense, that Sucker Punch has levels. There’s even a Wise Man [played by Scott Glenn] who gives objectives prior to each mission. The only thing missing from Sucker Punch is a loading screen and a controller. The movie itself is a series of unintelligible cut scenes that the player [audience] witnesses after finishing one of the levels. Only there is no feeling of accomplishment, just confusion.

 
In order for the gamification of this film to take flight. One needs a blank slate of a character and characters much smarter than her to tell her what to do. Though Carla Gugino emotes and conveys feelings much more confident than the rest of her cast, the accent she uses -- pure awful.
How long has this female asylum existed? And how long has it been doubling as the best little whorehouse in, well, where ever this undisclosed location may be. Doesn’t it seem odd that an establishment, which seemingly has existed for such a long period of time, has been managed by such a young, warden in Blue Jones [Oscar Isaac]? These are the parts of the movie’s structure that the audience isn’t supposed to think about. We’re supposed to think about that cool scene with Baby Doll [Emily Browning] as she discovers her samurai powers on the first level against the over-sized samurais. We’ll all this the “The Snow Level.”

One of the few positive notes in Sucker Punch is there is a keen eye for color scheme and mood. When scenes didn't feel completely faked and/or shot on a sound stage, the dark greens and white hues created a claustrophobic feel.
The movie hints [outloud] at sexual abuse and mistreatment of women, but never builds upon that. Probably because all the money was spent on the “The Dragon Level.” Wasn’t that cool though? When Baby Doll slayed a dragon as a representation of her friend Amber [Jamie Chung] snatching a key item from someone she was giving a lap dance to -- it was pure cinema poetry. Only, you know? With a hearty helping of tacky objectification. Weightless CG fight scenes rob the film of any tension or depth to the action. We all clocked out of this moving picture seconds after the audience realized that the character development would be replaced with steam-filled monsters and thigh-high socks. The least Snyder could do is give the viewer a more interesting RPG sidequest.

Sucker Punch actually does have a cool look about it -- like most video games do. The movie features several damsels in distress and monsters that plug choke points making odds seem insurmountable -- again, like most video games do. There is one scene of note: a computer generated masterpiece involving a train and Zak Snyder doing what he does best, showing you an incredibly detailed action sequence -- as slow as possible. Unfortunately, just after such a disturbingly good scene, the movie reminds you not to get invested in any of the waify characters -- by systematically killing them off.

A still from the best scene in the movie and arguable the ONLY reason to waste time and possibly money on it.
At least actresses like Jena Malone [Rocket] and Carla Gugino [Dr. Vera Gorski] give Sucker Punch some sort of soul in between the levelling up and cover-based shooting. This game almost seems like a movie! Then the camera focuses in on Baby Doll almost-kinda doing a seductive dance. Wherein she must travel to these mystical worlds [again, the video game] and the audience is to believe that she is just as good at conveying emotion as she is at dancing. You never see the dance, but the allegory is that her mystical ninja skills are just as good as her acts of burlesque -- that you never see. Guess Snyder didn’t want to go full-blown misogyny. Either that or he didn’t want to confuse the audience by going after something with more depth and risk.

With all the bells and whistles of what could have been a movie, Zak Snyder probably would have made a great b-level video game producer. The depth that I hinted at earlier is that we shouldn’t shy away from tales involving women wearing next-to-nothing fighting against a system that wants to keep them in next-to-nothing. There is a story there, but Zak Snyder isn’t the person to tell it. He’s proven this with Watchmen. He’s proven this with 300 and I can only imagine the havoc he’ll wreak on a movie like Superman. Sucker Punch had the unfortunate luck of being a creation all his own. So we see what happens when we leave a man to his gimmicks and writing abilities.

There are guns, girls and a high bodycount. Sucker Punch plays to the lowest common denominator in order to entertain. Unfortunately, every teenage boy who sees this movie ten years later will have a nostalgic feeling of shame.
At the end of Sucker Punch there is no feeling of achievement. There are no trophies. There is just confusion. So much talent wasted with such a talented cast. We have only ourselves to blame if more movies like these are made in the future.

I give Sucker Punch …



















Speaking of looking back on your adolescent foolishness...

The “Really? You Wanted To Be Caught In Public Looking Like This?” Award

Comments

[Rah]

The movie Sucker Punch doesn't seem like a movie that I would really like to watch, it just isn't my kind of movie. My DISH co-worker saw Sucker Punch in theaters and she loved it and all the graphics. I just can't get into movies like Sucker Punch. I think I will rent it since Blockbuster has it for rent for $0.99 cents July 1, 2011 to July 7, 2011. I think that is a great deal for a brand new movie! http://bit.ly/m8kwjf