HollyWoodn’t: Sucker Punch
April 7, 2011
Take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation for Sucker Punch. Go on.
I’ll wait.
Done? See that Rotten Tomato icon, accompanied by a lousy 21% overall score? Yeah, add at LEAST another 50% to that – and then some. Now we’re beginning to close in on a more accurate representation of Sucker Punch’s rightful rating. ‘Fuck da haterz’, says I!
Okay, I’m being overzealous and reek of unrequited fanboyism for this film. I admit, I have carried a long standing appreciation and (perhaps prematurely) sung the Sucker Punch praises for some time now, hyping the shit out of Zach Snyder’s latest project (300, The Watchmen), ever since it was a twinkle in the ball sack of his mind. Snyder is one of ‘those’ directors; notorious in Hollywood for taking risks and pissing off the masses who, after being fooled by teasers and trailers promising mainstream masturbatory mayhem, skulk out of local cinemateques with sore wallets and the Snyder name at the top of many a ‘To Kill’ list.
UNF.
His latest outing, SUCKER PUNCH (CAN’T SAY THIS ENOUGH), has delivered everything I expected, wanted and dreamed – all packaged in an awe-inspiring videogame-esque dreamland with brave and bashful beauties to boot.
The story of Sucker Punch is probably the least promising aspect of the entire dealio. Remember Emily Browing as Violet Baudelaire in (my favorite movie about orphans ever!) A Series Of Unfortunate Events? Take away Klaus and Sunny and replace them with four Violet clones, warp Count Olaf and his posse from mostly harmless and unhygienic villains to lobotomy loving larakins with a nasty habit of raping barely legal lovelies, AFTER losing their minds, no less and you have the basic premise to Sucker Punch. Except it’s TOTALLY FUCKING CONFUSING.
Baby-Doll (Browning) gets thrown in the nut house because her Step-Father totally killed her Sister and blamed it all on her. What’s a girl to do in a warped version of the Sixties? That’s right! Cry and look terrified all the time instead of asking forensics why they’re so fucking incompetent. To cope, Baby and the other doomed bitches hive mind imagine they are actually high class, high in demand burlesque performers. Because, it’s easier to get raped when you’re in sequins ladies!
Baby finally stops crying and proposes she and the girls get their damseled behinds out of the asylum before shit gets real. Thankfully, shit never gets real. In fact, shit goes in the complete opposite direction. A sage appears. Items are required. Nazi-zombies, dragons, iRobots and enemies from Shenmue? are required to be ass-kicked before a map, a knife, and a key can be had: ESCAPE ESSENTIALS, YA’ DEAL? Sucker Punch is like the result of America being allowed to remake Pan’s Labyrinth. Except it appeals less to the Richard Roeper’s of the world and more to awesome people like me and you.
The CGI is incredible. I cannot stress this enough. It’s tacky, yes, but film grains aplenty, accompanied by an absolute bangin’ soundtrack (Queen, Eurythmics, The Beatles – oh my!) help make the entire experience entirely digestible. The girl power is palpable throughout, if a little nauseatingly over-sexualised. If I wasn’t so gay, I’d probably feel super dirty watching Browning and co. perform a multitude of flips and kicks… in slow motion. Up-skirt slow-motion. All. The. Damn. Time.
Snyder has expressed in interviews it was his intention to use Sucker Punch as a vessel to make accountable Geek Culture’s obsession with scantily clad female characters, and he has done so remarkably. It’s not all up in your face mind you. Nevertheless, throughout the two hour epic, it hovers in your subconscious menacingly – like an overbearing, Christian Mother making you feel dirty and unnatural for asking about the birds and bees.
So if you like pretty girls, robots, zombies, insane people, breasts, fire, ice, Asians, pseudo-Asians, awkward gyrations, embarrassingly cliched pet-names and rapists in eyeliner – you get it all in Sucker Punch. It’s the best sucker punch you will ever have…
…and one more thing – ‘Don’t write any checks with your mouths that your ass can’t cover… And don’t wake the dragon.’
