This is a weird film for me to admit I liked and I think it's because I like Sucker Punch more for what it did and less for what it is.
Taken on face value on it's strength as a movie alone, it's really not that great. The plot is tissue thin, the characters are poorly developed (there's a joke about breast size in there if anyone wants it), and the script is weak...it's pretty much just a 120 minute music video.
However, when viewed in conjunction with it's promotional material it takes on a lot of the qualities Mr. Bob discussed. It flat out tricked the overwhelming majority of it's audience into seeing it based on the allure of watching pretty little girls in fetish gear kicking high.
I'll be the first to admit that I fell for that. Being a collector of "Good Girl Art" and having worked with friends who are themselves performers of American and Victorian burlesque, I may have gone into this with a slightly different viewpoint than most. That's not to say that I wasn't still there to see the same thing as the rest of the audience.
But I loved the fact that the movie spent the majority of it's time criticizing it's audience. It blows my mind that Sucker Punch gets dismissed as juvenile and pandering while the equally great Cabin in the Woods get's praised for pulling the same trick with different cards. Or to keep things a little more current, this is the exact kind of marketing bait and switch that's getting Spec Ops: The Line so much praise right now.
So yeah, Sucker Punch, Cabin in the Woods and Spec Ops: The Line are all, on their surface pretty much middle of the road to sup par examples of their respective genres who took chances on using the tropes of their genre to turn a mirror on their audience. So why is Sucker Punch the only one routinely getting passed off as being nothing but a pandering mess?
Taken on face value on it's strength as a movie alone, it's really not that great. The plot is tissue thin, the characters are poorly developed (there's a joke about breast size in there if anyone wants it), and the script is weak...it's pretty much just a 120 minute music video.
However, when viewed in conjunction with it's promotional material it takes on a lot of the qualities Mr. Bob discussed. It flat out tricked the overwhelming majority of it's audience into seeing it based on the allure of watching pretty little girls in fetish gear kicking high.
I'll be the first to admit that I fell for that. Being a collector of "Good Girl Art" and having worked with friends who are themselves performers of American and Victorian burlesque, I may have gone into this with a slightly different viewpoint than most. That's not to say that I wasn't still there to see the same thing as the rest of the audience.
But I loved the fact that the movie spent the majority of it's time criticizing it's audience. It blows my mind that Sucker Punch gets dismissed as juvenile and pandering while the equally great Cabin in the Woods get's praised for pulling the same trick with different cards. Or to keep things a little more current, this is the exact kind of marketing bait and switch that's getting Spec Ops: The Line so much praise right now.
So yeah, Sucker Punch, Cabin in the Woods and Spec Ops: The Line are all, on their surface pretty much middle of the road to sup par examples of their respective genres who took chances on using the tropes of their genre to turn a mirror on their audience. So why is Sucker Punch the only one routinely getting passed off as being nothing but a pandering mess?