Escape to the Movies: Sucker Punch
- Thread starter MovieBob
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Well, that was a frustrating movie.
On the whole, I'd have to say I'm glad that I saw it. It's certainly an audacious and interesting piece of film-making. The use of color and lighting, the visual shorthand, the framing, editing, action, and movement- on a purely artistic level, there's a lot to be admired and things that I even hope might be emulated, if partly to throw momentum against the tide of quick-cutting shaky-camerawork pseudo-reality film-making.
And the script isn't incompetent. I think most people who have seen their share of movies learn to grin and bear it (or grimace and bear it) when the movies they watch treat them like idiots: dialogue that might as well have glowing ?this will come up later!? signs posted around it, characters who are dragged kicking and screaming away from their characterization into doing what the direction of the plot requires of them, three-act story structure so obvious you could set a metronome to it. By and large, Sucker Punch doesn't fall into those traps; huzzah.
But then...
(SPOILERS AHEAD.)
On the whole, I'd have to say I'm glad that I saw it. It's certainly an audacious and interesting piece of film-making. The use of color and lighting, the visual shorthand, the framing, editing, action, and movement- on a purely artistic level, there's a lot to be admired and things that I even hope might be emulated, if partly to throw momentum against the tide of quick-cutting shaky-camerawork pseudo-reality film-making.
And the script isn't incompetent. I think most people who have seen their share of movies learn to grin and bear it (or grimace and bear it) when the movies they watch treat them like idiots: dialogue that might as well have glowing ?this will come up later!? signs posted around it, characters who are dragged kicking and screaming away from their characterization into doing what the direction of the plot requires of them, three-act story structure so obvious you could set a metronome to it. By and large, Sucker Punch doesn't fall into those traps; huzzah.
But then...
(SPOILERS AHEAD.)
...we get to the ending.
Sucker Punch has what I'd have to call a downer ending. No, sit down and shut up, you there in the back- you're wrong. I know that Sweet Pea escapes; in a movie where half the sympathetic characters die and the heroine gets lobotomized, one character making it to freedom is not a triumph for our heroes. It's a sap for the audience to prevent them from going home and taking sleeping pills. Did you think Saving Private Ryan was a happy ending because Ryan got out alive? No? Then shut up.
Now, I'm not necessarily against the occasional movie having a downer ending. We see an awful lot of badly contrived and "deus ex machina" happy endings; it's good that we occasionally see things shaken up a bit, good that "what the audience wants to see" isn't always the primary drive, good that we can't always predict the last ripple from the first cast of the stone.
I'm not even going to complain that two of our supporting cast are casually and almost dismissively killed off in the space of less than a minute. Well, all right, I'm going to complain, but that's not the reason that Sucker Punch frustrated me; barring the ending, I might have been willing to let that go.
It's that we're told, in essence, that it's okay that Baby Doll sacrifices herself and gets lobotomized so that Sweet Pea can escape, because Sweet Pea was the real hero all along.
Bullshit.
In no sense that any modern narrative would recognize is Sweet Pea the heroine of this movie.
We don't start the movie with Sweet Pea, we start it with Baby Doll. Okay, yes, we start it with Sweet Pea's voice-over, but you know what? It's trivial. It's barely more meaningful to the scene and what transpires around it than the soundtrack at any given moment.
Sweet Pea doesn't start events in motion; of all the characters, she's the one most content to remain exactly where she started. She's the one who drags her feet when everyone else commits to action. She appears to have achieved a pampered place in the existing system, and resents Baby Doll for coming in and upstaging her. By and large, she's not only not the heroine, but the least sympathetic of the "good guy" characters.
In a nutshell, while Baby Doll sinks into her subconscious to take up arms against her situation, Sweet Pea crosses her arms and says, "Oh, she's not all that great."
For most of the running time of the movie, it's Baby Doll's active resistance to the cruelty of her situation that drives us and makes us cheer for her- for her, and the others who stand by her side. It is Baby Doll who makes the plan; Baby Doll who, literally, slays dragons.
And then the rug is pulled out from under the audience. "This was never about Baby Doll; it was about Sweet Pea."
No, no it wasn't. I mean, that may be part of the joke of calling the movie Sucker Punch in the first place- "Ha ha- see what we did there? Weren't expecting that, were you?"... But the movie does nothing to earn our respect for that ending.
And without that respect, you can't score a knock-out blow. Because the audience just refuses to play.
Sucker Punch has what I'd have to call a downer ending. No, sit down and shut up, you there in the back- you're wrong. I know that Sweet Pea escapes; in a movie where half the sympathetic characters die and the heroine gets lobotomized, one character making it to freedom is not a triumph for our heroes. It's a sap for the audience to prevent them from going home and taking sleeping pills. Did you think Saving Private Ryan was a happy ending because Ryan got out alive? No? Then shut up.
Now, I'm not necessarily against the occasional movie having a downer ending. We see an awful lot of badly contrived and "deus ex machina" happy endings; it's good that we occasionally see things shaken up a bit, good that "what the audience wants to see" isn't always the primary drive, good that we can't always predict the last ripple from the first cast of the stone.
I'm not even going to complain that two of our supporting cast are casually and almost dismissively killed off in the space of less than a minute. Well, all right, I'm going to complain, but that's not the reason that Sucker Punch frustrated me; barring the ending, I might have been willing to let that go.
It's that we're told, in essence, that it's okay that Baby Doll sacrifices herself and gets lobotomized so that Sweet Pea can escape, because Sweet Pea was the real hero all along.
Bullshit.
In no sense that any modern narrative would recognize is Sweet Pea the heroine of this movie.
We don't start the movie with Sweet Pea, we start it with Baby Doll. Okay, yes, we start it with Sweet Pea's voice-over, but you know what? It's trivial. It's barely more meaningful to the scene and what transpires around it than the soundtrack at any given moment.
Sweet Pea doesn't start events in motion; of all the characters, she's the one most content to remain exactly where she started. She's the one who drags her feet when everyone else commits to action. She appears to have achieved a pampered place in the existing system, and resents Baby Doll for coming in and upstaging her. By and large, she's not only not the heroine, but the least sympathetic of the "good guy" characters.
In a nutshell, while Baby Doll sinks into her subconscious to take up arms against her situation, Sweet Pea crosses her arms and says, "Oh, she's not all that great."
For most of the running time of the movie, it's Baby Doll's active resistance to the cruelty of her situation that drives us and makes us cheer for her- for her, and the others who stand by her side. It is Baby Doll who makes the plan; Baby Doll who, literally, slays dragons.
And then the rug is pulled out from under the audience. "This was never about Baby Doll; it was about Sweet Pea."
No, no it wasn't. I mean, that may be part of the joke of calling the movie Sucker Punch in the first place- "Ha ha- see what we did there? Weren't expecting that, were you?"... But the movie does nothing to earn our respect for that ending.
And without that respect, you can't score a knock-out blow. Because the audience just refuses to play.
Because every one of those fantasies directly reflected the surrounding.ShadowKirby said:
It wasn't creating a completely new fantasy world, it was projecting her surroundings into a fantasy.
Callate said:
You do realize that the opening scene already alluded to this ending. "Sometimes angels are sent down to save us" or something along those lines. Babydoll's entire purpose was to sacrifice herself to save Sweat Pea. The way the story is told is through Babydoll, and it goes until she reaches the end of her journey, but her journey is just a small part of the world around her.
A protagonist doesn't have to have the world revolve around them to be a protagonist
A protagonist doesn't have to have the world revolve around them to be a protagonist
Sorry, guys- I know having entire discussions within spoiler tags is a little screwy at best. Take it as further evidence that I believe the movie is worth seeing.bob1052 said:
I do realize. But while that narration does "set up" the ending, nothing else in the movie itself really does, and that narration only comes up at the beginning and end, which makes it seem rather superfluous. The entire movie is driven by action, but we're meant to accept an enormous shift on the basis of the tiniest amount of dialogue and narrative. Quite frankly the narration does nothing but tell us what we're supposed to feel, which seems to run counter to an entire movie about showing us.
The world may not revolve around Baby Doll, but the story up until that point very much does. Wikipedia describes a protagonist as the character "around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy"; again, I would note that without Baby Doll, and not just her presence but her action, nothing in the story happens. And I've already written about how my empathy played.
Consider also that we're to understand that Sweet Pea has followed Rocket into the asylum, that her whole purpose for being there is to protect her. She fails to do so, which is sad, of course, but what ought to be a meaningful moment- perhaps the pivot point of the entire piece- occurs very late, and then its dramatic impact is quickly blunted by the sudden deaths of Amber and Blondie. Instead of it driving Sweet Pea to action or commitment, it just results in her being imprisoned until she can be rescued by the real hero.
This story isn't set up to draw our attentions to Sweet Pea. I can imagine that there's a story that occurs before this one which does, in which she could be considered the center of action and the sympathetic heart, but there's little reason to describe her so in this one. She's not the hero; she's the MacGuffin.
The world may not revolve around Baby Doll, but the story up until that point very much does. Wikipedia describes a protagonist as the character "around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy"; again, I would note that without Baby Doll, and not just her presence but her action, nothing in the story happens. And I've already written about how my empathy played.
Consider also that we're to understand that Sweet Pea has followed Rocket into the asylum, that her whole purpose for being there is to protect her. She fails to do so, which is sad, of course, but what ought to be a meaningful moment- perhaps the pivot point of the entire piece- occurs very late, and then its dramatic impact is quickly blunted by the sudden deaths of Amber and Blondie. Instead of it driving Sweet Pea to action or commitment, it just results in her being imprisoned until she can be rescued by the real hero.
This story isn't set up to draw our attentions to Sweet Pea. I can imagine that there's a story that occurs before this one which does, in which she could be considered the center of action and the sympathetic heart, but there's little reason to describe her so in this one. She's not the hero; she's the MacGuffin.
Ultimately, Sucker Punch isn't a good movie. Once again I wholeheartedly disagree with MovieBob.
I figured Bob would like Sucker Punch based on his Scott Pilgrim review, but i wasn't expecting him to make the connection himself.
I haven't seen it yet. Based on what I've read about it (including spoilers), i don't see anyything this movie does that wasn't already done better by Pan's Labyrinth. (aside from tits and explosions, of course.)
I haven't seen it yet. Based on what I've read about it (including spoilers), i don't see anyything this movie does that wasn't already done better by Pan's Labyrinth. (aside from tits and explosions, of course.)
IronChuck said:
*Spoiler*
I think you've got it wrong. It was nothing like "Brazil" or "Jacob's Ladder" in resolution.
The bottom line of the movie is that the entire thing was being set up by God, or some general stand in thereof. The surreal aspects of the movie are actually more of a vision quest than insane hallucinations taking place in the mind of someone who was already gone
or whatever.
The important bit that the whole thing revolves around is that throughout these dream visions there is ONE character that does not have a real world analogy, and that's the commander that is giving everyone their marching orders. This is also the one who specifies the items that need to be found AND the unspecified "fifth thing".
You are lead to wonder for a good part of the movie if she simply concocted this plan to begin with on her own and if this character is sort of a stand in for her own mind. However the gradual revelation that she had information that she couldn't possibly possess, and referances that "fifth thing" during a specific part of the climax makes it pretty clear
that she wasn't entirely calling the shots. Any doubt is dispelled when you see this character as the bus driver at the end of the movie, saving Sweet Pea in the real world, a character Sweet Pea incidently never would have recognized as she wasn't having the visions.
This is pretty much at odds with the whole "it was all the product of a delusional or deluded mind" concept, especially when you consider that Babydoll isn't actually insane to begin with.
As I explained in my earlier concepts, I think the problem with this movie is that it spends too much time trying to be mysterious, and winds up leaving things as a bit too much of a downer despite the attempts to be upbeat with the ending. See, in watching this movie your never given any real context as to WHY so much trouble would be being taken to liberate Sweetpea. Also given that our apparent protaganist is being guided into all of this with the promise of freedom, and yet it's known she is going to have to sacrifice herself in the end, it sort of bugs me that this is just tossed out there so casually and Babydoll just goes along with it at that point. I'll also say that I think it was notable that as a direct result of what has happend a rather nasty racket they had going on at this asylum is brought down. The one problem of course being Babydoll's father/stepfather who is pretty evil and setting this all up for a money grab, who never seems to face any backlash from these
events.
It's a decent movie, but not a great one. I think it could have been greatly improved by using the ending to put things into context a bit better.
See, the idea is to take what seems to be a real downer of a story, and change it into a good story by pointing out that it wasn't actually about Babydoll, it was about SweetPea and Babydoll was the "angel" sent by providence to save her. I mean they pretty much state this at the beginning, but do it in such a way that you expect it's Babydoll who will be saved. Also during the stage scene when they cut back, they also do kind of state that Sweetpea is the star, and Babydoll is the stand in, and that foreshadows the ending... I think they ultimatly failed though, because despite the cinematography the ending reveal just wasn't uplifting. I feel more like that version of God was being a douche in how he went about things for his own reasons (which to be fair is also fairly accurate to a literal interpetation of the bible). They needed to add more context to the entire thing, and probably should have made a somewhat bigger deal about the self-sacrifice bit. On a lot of levels with the visions and the sacrifice, I wound up thinking of "Joan Of Arc" actually, except with a lobotomy as opposed to being burned at the stake, and a far less clear cut objective behind the entire thing.
Just going to chime in on an old thread, I saw this movie with my wife and we both thought it was a great movie to watch, fun geek references for me plenty of action / interesting double story (what happens in the dream vs pseudo reality) for the wife. Overall i'd give it an 8.5 out of 10. I can see why some wouldnt enjoy the movie it is kind of all over the place at times and doesn't really explain much but thats half the fun, watching the movie and going AHHHH!!! to something that explains an event 10-15 mins ago.
Thus far this is the only positive review of this movie I've seen. That tends to make me wonder if Bob is just taking his usual "Everyone else hates it so I love it" stance or if there's actually something redeeming to it.
Really, the more I think about this review I have to laugh. This is movie is the sort of blatant, soulless, overproduced, CG, lowest common denominator, PG-13 fanwank that Bob is always raging against.. and here he is giving it a positive review? Oh.. and saying it's a female empowerment piece? Really??
Really, the more I think about this review I have to laugh. This is movie is the sort of blatant, soulless, overproduced, CG, lowest common denominator, PG-13 fanwank that Bob is always raging against.. and here he is giving it a positive review? Oh.. and saying it's a female empowerment piece? Really??
American't public is just not ready for movies of this sort. Feed them Spider-mans and keep them in the dark.
I disagree about Zack Snyder, I think he doesn't get it. At all. If anything he's the new Joel Schumacher, doomed to remake Batman & Robin over and over again. His films are camp and silly, and there's nothing wrong with that, except everyone keeps pretending that they're not camp and silly.
To me, Watchmen just proved that die hard fans shouldn't be made responsible for making film adaptations, because they spend ages getting the look spot on, and then totally miss the fucking point of the story.
To me, Watchmen just proved that die hard fans shouldn't be made responsible for making film adaptations, because they spend ages getting the look spot on, and then totally miss the fucking point of the story.
This movie was so bad, it's good. Forget story, acting, dialog, we all expected as much from the trailer. The music numbers are cringe-worthy painful though, shitting all over Pixies, White Rabbit, and others. But you know something is wrong when geek critics are bashing it.
But the action itself and the visuals? The visuals are a rip-off, there's zero creativity going on here for a geek movie. There's nothing new here you're seeing, so I can't recommend it on that. This is not like Tron Legacy where you might get some enjoyment from unique visuals.
The action? If you don't have drama, setbacks, or build-up, you have bad action sequences where you can't empathise with the characters' survival in any fights. Not a single scratch on any of the actors. It just feels like a screensaver, or watching a videogame cutscene where you can't get involved.
Every action sequence was disappointing. Nothing cool or memorable happened, other than the concept of the scene. There's only one objective, and that's the end of the scene. Train sci-fi scene, they go and kill enemies, put a bomb in, and go away. That's it, no build-up. The fight choreography is unremarkable, none of the action sequences compare to even Scott Pilgrim.
It's fine to have an exploitative girl action movie, if you're up front about it. This film isn't. It takes itself too seriously, even more so than 300. I can see the appeal of Japanese oneechanbara or Machine Girl because they're fully aware of how silly their content is.
Not Snyder, this is his passion project. It's a train-wreck, wait till the DVD to check out this failure.
But the action itself and the visuals? The visuals are a rip-off, there's zero creativity going on here for a geek movie. There's nothing new here you're seeing, so I can't recommend it on that. This is not like Tron Legacy where you might get some enjoyment from unique visuals.
The action? If you don't have drama, setbacks, or build-up, you have bad action sequences where you can't empathise with the characters' survival in any fights. Not a single scratch on any of the actors. It just feels like a screensaver, or watching a videogame cutscene where you can't get involved.
Every action sequence was disappointing. Nothing cool or memorable happened, other than the concept of the scene. There's only one objective, and that's the end of the scene. Train sci-fi scene, they go and kill enemies, put a bomb in, and go away. That's it, no build-up. The fight choreography is unremarkable, none of the action sequences compare to even Scott Pilgrim.
It's fine to have an exploitative girl action movie, if you're up front about it. This film isn't. It takes itself too seriously, even more so than 300. I can see the appeal of Japanese oneechanbara or Machine Girl because they're fully aware of how silly their content is.
http://www.spicygif.com/bin/062010/1275389722_machine-girl-ass-machine-gun.gif
Not Snyder, this is his passion project. It's a train-wreck, wait till the DVD to check out this failure.
I agree with you for the most part, though I think Snyder shows himself to be a better visual director than he is a writer. The writing and the "characters" (definitely not enough dimensions to warrant the title) are the weakest links in the movie. The way the story is framed, leading to the Downer Ending, doesn't give us a lot of room to care about what happens to the girls.Callate said:
However.
As a woman, when the movie ended I was aggravated. I couldn't explain why to my liking until I read an interview with Snyder where he explained his logical reasoning for his own creation. The idea came from wanting to reprimand sleazy guys who like to leer at women, and objectify them, and treat them like whores. So that first dream layer is literally setting up a slap on the wrist for men in the geek community who view women (and female characters) like whores, with the second dreamscape (the mashup) putting men (male geeks in particular) in the position of the male characters of the primary dream.
So...the movie isn't even about women, or its female characters. Showing support for the XX-chromosome cause isn't "female empowerment." In his own movie, Snyder is using women in the same manner he's accusing other men of doing--and "for a good cause" doesn't excuse it. It's still a dialogue between men. I mean, he threw us a bone, that's great, but I don't enjoy being the pawn in someone else's game. Particularly when the argument's going on over my head, I'm the subject, and only touted out as needed. Snyder may have had good intentions, but he missed the mark. The fact that both sides are accusing the other of being the exact same type of male says something, I think, about men and male sexuality that I'm having trouble pinning down. Until then, it's ironic in a hilarious kind of way.
Seriously though...the girls are strongest when furthest removed from reality?? I think my entire experience with this movie can be summarized as, "You're doing it wrong."
To start if you haven't seen this movie do not see it only on what you saw in the trailer those parts are few and far between.
Personally I thought this movie was good visually and artistically, but to be honest the acting was only okay at best with some more serious moments being completely overdone. The plot was okay but fell apart at parts like they forgot certain things made no sense in or out of context.
I didn't think much of this beyond it having good artistic quality
Personally I thought this movie was good visually and artistically, but to be honest the acting was only okay at best with some more serious moments being completely overdone. The plot was okay but fell apart at parts like they forgot certain things made no sense in or out of context.
I didn't think much of this beyond it having good artistic quality
If I had to sum up 'Suckerpunch' in one word: boring.
The girls have no personality whatsoever, any fight scene is ruined by the fact that the enemies are utterly faceless and the girls are completely immune to all damage except for cutscene deaths, and the upskirts and cleavage lose their appeal when you realize how literally impossible it would be to see anything scandalous. The barriers are too clearly defined.
If the movie was rated R, this might have had a chance. But then we run into '70s exploitation territory and we aren't allowed to have entertaining movies anymore, are we? That would be sexist.
Minor secondary thought: as I had suspected I would, I had a lot of trouble telling the difference between Baby pre- and post-lobotomy.
The girls have no personality whatsoever, any fight scene is ruined by the fact that the enemies are utterly faceless and the girls are completely immune to all damage except for cutscene deaths, and the upskirts and cleavage lose their appeal when you realize how literally impossible it would be to see anything scandalous. The barriers are too clearly defined.
If the movie was rated R, this might have had a chance. But then we run into '70s exploitation territory and we aren't allowed to have entertaining movies anymore, are we? That would be sexist.
Minor secondary thought: as I had suspected I would, I had a lot of trouble telling the difference between Baby pre- and post-lobotomy.