The Big Picture: You Are Wrong About Sucker Punch, Part One

MovieBob

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You Are Wrong About Sucker Punch, Part One

MovieBob delivers a Sucker Punch to your senses.

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PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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Jan 30, 2011
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Oh, i enjoyed Sucker Punch. Well, at least the Directors Cut. The normal cut lacked one vital and one pretty cool part. I know what Sucker Punch was trying to do and i appreciate it... but it lacked in dialogue and characterisation. People calling it misogynist though are just not getting it.
 

Scarim Coral

Jumped the ship
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Oct 29, 2010
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Hehe, I see you put in that Tarot comicbook as the example for comicbook about women.
Yeah I didn't like the film either and while I did get that the males were portray as the villian (well except for the one given their objective) but I didn't think it like that!
 

Hollyday

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Mar 5, 2012
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I really REALLY want to see this movie, if only because I have never heard such wildly divergent criticisms and explanations of a film's plot, characters and themes ever.
 

Cyfu

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Nov 25, 2010
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I have to be honest. I only watched the movie for 3 reasons:
1. "babydoll" is fucking hot.
2. Schoolgirl outfit? hawt
3. hot chick in schoolgirl outfit fighting with a katana.

Although I would imagine the majority watched it for these reasons
 

MrBaskerville

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Mar 15, 2011
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I got it, but still hated it, my issues with the movie is the acting and the drawn out dull action sequences. Actually i´m not really sure that i enjoyed anything about this movie, except for parts of the soundtrack. Just plain bad, though not quite as bad as its reputation.

I personally think that Zack Znyder should stay away from writing scripts and keep doing what he´s good at: adaptations.
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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Mar 16, 2011
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I feel like I 'get' this film mostly because I have been in abusive relationships with men and have used my imagination (and games) as a form of escapism. This film could have been taken from inside my head... I have real life parallels for both the step father and the doctor/brothel owner guy, unfortunately.

You are so right about this Bob, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

This film made me cry, I'm not sure how many people it had that effect on.
 

StriderShinryu

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Dec 8, 2009
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Sucker Punch is an interesting movie that I really quite enjoyed. It was far from perfect, but I found the message quite clear. In that sense, I sort of found it to be like Inception. Everyone was going on and on about how Inception confused them or was so complicated, but I found if you actually watched the movie it made perfect sense. Sucker Punch is very obvious in it's intent if you actually sit down and watch it. Now, whether you like or agree with that message or the way it's delivered is totally up to you, but the message itself is clear.

PsychedelicDiamond said:
Oh, i enjoyed Sucker Punch. Well, at least the Directors Cut. The normal cut lacked one vital and one pretty cool part. I know what Sucker Punch was trying to do and i appreciate it... but it lacked in dialogue and characterisation. People calling it misogynist though are just not getting it.
I have seen the movie a couple of times, but not the director's cut. Any chance you can spoil the additional material for me either here (perhaps in Spoiler tags) or by PM?
 

obedai

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Mar 19, 2010
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My main problem with this movie is that the action scenes aren't integrated well into the movie. The movie makes its artistic statement reasonably well, but the action scenes feel completely pointless and tacked on because there is no reason for them to be there in the plot of the movie. The action scenes cut away from the characters and plot to essentially go 'whee explosions' for a few minutes so that it can make its artistic statement.

I also think that people didn't like it because it wasn't what they wanted it to be. The movie was very unconventional in many ways, especially its ending, but it looks and was marketed like a standard action flick. People wanted and expected it to be this big eye-candy action extravaganza, but it wasn't.
 

mrblakemiller

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Aug 13, 2010
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I completely agree that calling Sucker Punch misogynist is basically saying, "Women can never wear skimpy outfits or be protrayed as being victimized," so it's not misgynist.

I disagree with everything else you said. Remember that film "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau? After it premiered and absolutely tanked, he came out and said it was a black comedic farce intended to suck to make you laugh. I simply don't grant that. I have no room in my head or my moviegoing experience for a director to come out after, or even before, the fact and say, "You're watching it wrongly." If the film itself can't prove to me that that is "what it's about" then the film failed and not my inquisitive moviegoing brain. Seriously, just how does a striptease parallel to shooting Nazi zombies? Furthermore, why am I supposed to believe it's a good plot device that a pubescent dancer is so great at sexy dancing that it literally stuns the men who see it? Then you've got the pretty aritrary death of two of the main five female characters, which has nothing to with subtext and is just a lazy way to whittle down the protagonists because this is the kind of story where only one person is allowed to survive. Besides, what does it mean for a person to lambast sleazy moviegoing audiences while delivering to them a sleazy movie? that's like a vegan serving hamburgers to his guests and then retreat back to the kitchen to scorn them. No thanks to that kind of self-unaware pretention.

It's not just that Sucker Punch doesn't get to say, "No, we're LAMBASTING that stupid stuff instead of glorifying it," it's that it doesn't serve up a good movie on any basis. The plot is like something out of an 8-bit video game, the characters are as deep as their monikers, and the events do pretty much nothing to make you care about anyone except by saying, "Hey, they're in a crappy asylum and people are abusing and killing them. Be invested." Sucker Punch just didn't work, on any level.

But yeah, it's not misogynist.
 

Scrustle

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Apr 30, 2011
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Finally, someone is actually taking a worthwhile look at this film instead of just dismissing it as sexist pandering. I really liked this film myself.

I never really found the film misogynistic. I never felt like the movie was trying to make me look at the girls as sexually appealing, despite their costumes. They were just a side effect of the world the film was set in. The whole criticism of how the film is supposed to be dressing up soft porn as "empowerment" seemed so forced to me. It didn't feel like either of those. Maybe people just threw that criticism at the film because that's what people usually say about films that look like this. They didn't bother to look closer, or simply accept that there might be narrative reasons why the girls are dressed as they are, and not just to titillate the audience.

But the metaphor of the strip-tease and the action scenes and how that relates to the viewer sounds really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense. I always had a feeling there was more going on in that film that it was letting on. The layers of fantasy weren't just Inception-esque plot devices to allow them to change scenery, they had meaning to them. I kind of got that the action scenes were analogous to the strip-tease, but adding the viewer in to the metaphor is genius. I never thought of that myself, but it makes perfect sense.
 

jaymiechan

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Jun 27, 2012
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i DESPISE this film. Sure, there's the condemnation, but there's also a lack of positive icons that can be used to bolster the "satire" element.

My biggest problem, though? The opening scene nearly triggered me. The abusive stepdad? There's obvious cues that the daughters were abused, going to the point of sexual when the shooting occurs, and sexual abuse going to an escapist fantasy that involves being sexually objectified and feasibly abused more? That's ridiculous.

Then there is the point that the film, regardless of whatever lofty goals it might have had, revels in the very thing it is attempting to satirize. i mean, for cripes sake, you don't even find out any of the names of the women! AKA a very humanizing element, and something that could have cemented, even if held as a reveal for the end.
 

Imp_Emissary

Mages Rule, and Dragons Fly!
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Wow. That's heavy. I can't wait to see more.

Say, does this mean I should feel bad or good about not wanting to see it when it came out?
 

GloatingSwine

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Nov 10, 2007
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So, if Sucker Punch was unsuccessful in conveying its satire of pandering male nerd fantasy cynically pretending to be somehow feminist by making its fetish dolls into action heroes, what does distinguish it from pandering male nerd fantasy cynically pretending to be somehow feminist by making its fetish dolls into action heroes?

Not much. Really.

That's the thing with satirical condemnation, if you aren't very clever, like Zack Snyder, you end up straight up making the thing you were condemning.
 

Ralen-Sharr

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Feb 12, 2010
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eh, I watched it, liked it
I just thought it was entertaining, lots of action and hot chicks. Some steampunk and other sci-fi thrown in, plus a dragon.
What's not to like?