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

[ElPatron]

I wasn't referring to the "Women are empowered, therefore it's feminist!" line of thinking in regards to it being "updated".

I wasn't either. That's why I used a paragraph.

Rather, that Zack Snyder created this story when he was 13, and when he had the chance to make it he tried to "update" it with standard conventions in regards to what he perceives as feminism, but because the overall concept doesn't work with the update that it becomes a mess. It's the conflict between the 13 year old Zack and the adult Zack where I was referring to the failure in the "update".

The movie is indeed flawed in my opinion, but I still don't feel the "rough edges" of the update. I think that the transition between the cabaret and the fighting scenes are exactly like Snyder wanted, not a byproduct of a conflict of interests. They just happen to suck.

 

[Farthing]

For those saying that the film possessed too many fanciful layers, try watching "Inland Empire", and to a lesser extent "Mulholland Drive". There's a really solid, consistent message buried in "Mulholland Drive" that takes a lot of thinking and logical analysis to pull out, but when you find it, its solid and completely recasts the movie. If you don't take the time to pull out the plot it looks like a schizophrenic nancy-drew novel with a random nude scene and a spanish song, followed by a really depressing, mundane catalog of someone's hatred. "Inland Empire" on the other hand...I'm not sure where that was going. I trust there's a message somewhere, but I'm not going to find it.

Either way, the twists Bob is presenting here are solid, standard, and when pointed out feel almost heavy handed. The reason they are SO easy to overlook is because Suckerpunch was advertised like a bad action film, and if you go into it with that mindset (which it is hard not to) you WILL overlook the more traditional artful twists that ARE present in this film.

 

[BonGookKumBop]

Thanks for your interpretation; I really enjoyed it.

The trailers of the movie caused me to want to watch it, but I was reluctant because the sexualization of the characters made me question the wisdom of watching it with my wife (the only way I watch movies). Last week, I finally decided that it couldn't be too bad if it was PG-13 and sat to watch it. I was surprised when the fantasy action violence scenes, the scenes that looked so good in the trailers and made me want to see the movie, left me thinking, "eh, ok, I feel like I have to be immature to enjoy these." Thanks to your interpretation, I feel like that was the whole point of the movie.

Despite your insightful and extensive interpretation, I feel like you missed one aspect of the role of Scott Glenn. I understand that feel divine intervention is an overused cliche in movies, but I think the producers might have used it in this case. At the beginning of the movie, the narrator talks about angels that guide us and help us survive through our darkest hours. She goes on to say that these angels often even speak through the monsters that haunt us. This opens the possibility that Scott Glenn could therefore be the angel encouraging Sweet Pea, speaking through Baby Girl, who is tormenting her with unrealistic plans that will hurt the sister she loves.

 

[Safaia]

Someone mentioned that if Sweet Pea is having the visions, as the ending might imply, then she is clearly insane, needs help and thus shouldn't be escaping. However, the movie tells us that Sweet Pea went in on purpose to follow Rocket.

 

[LordFish]

I'm not a prude, but this film made me really uncomfortable... Anyone else feel that?

 

[Mark Pifher]

Bob, this was a fantastic review full of depth, analysis and actual contextual examples put forward to back-up each premise. The format alone deserves some considerable credit because you effectively argue your point while still managing to be entertaining. I have to say, this is one of the best reviews I have seen and/or read dealing with this particular movie and in my opinion you nailed it.

Congratulations aside, I wanted to add something to your bullet-point list of what this movie was doing that you probably found painfully obvious and cut from the final draft before recording audio. The very fact that the lobotomy is effectively turning these women into mere physical objects reflects the final mutilation that the patriarchal power-structure inflicts on women. That is to say, the heroines of these stories don't die ... they lose their ability to think and are rendered into society as only flesh. I just think it's at the heart of what stakes the heroines of the story have AND the stakes of 'new-wave' feminism.

I have had plenty of heated discussions about the nature of this film's theme and its relation to exploitation film, comic books, etc (of which I am a fairly big fan). I think it is also important to look at the demonization of masculinity that is also explored in this film rather brilliantly in the backdrop of everything.

Honestly, the 'Sucker Punch' for me was going to a movie to see scantily clad warrior women blast beastly bad-guys but I left not only thinking about the ramifications of my interest, but guilty, dirty feeling, and strangely excited; not unlike going to a strip-club and remaining sober the whole time.

 

[Li Mu]

Sucker Punch reviewed by Mark Kermode

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzfwDkwUGnM

I have to agree with Mark Kermode.
While I did enjoy Watchmen and 300, there really is no depth to these films. So I'll agree that Zack Snyder makes pretty superficial films. They look and sound fantastic, but have nothing inside them.

Bob wanted to see something and so he found it. If you look hard enough into mashed potato you can find an image of Jesus. That's what Bob did.

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

A great pair of videos, MovieBob.

I left the cinema after seeing this thinking the title never meant more than the "this isn't my story" reference and the lobotomy going ahead.

Examining my reasons for going to see the film? Well I remember agreeing to go see it with a friend providing we both had low expectations, and afterwards leaving the cinema thinking "well... what the hell was that?"

It never occurred to me that the problem with the film was that a lot of thought went into the film and it failed in its execution to convey the message. I'd left thinking the film was [a] just a hodgepodge box ticking that the marketing department approved as gimmicks and or a mess of 2 films of two very different tones suited to two very different age ratings that had their scripts mashed together and lost a lot of comprehensibility in doing so.

I'm not ashamed to say that I need some films explained to me, I don't have an intuitive comprehension of the media others have. I was still trying to wrap my head around what had happened in the last seen when yet another ton of both implicit symbolism and explicit satirical visuals were getting blasted at me.

I can't simply hyper-thread that as its thrown at me, my brain isn't a damn multi-core processor. Hell, a large part of the reason my friend and I went with such low expectations was we were expecting the Michael Bay aesthetic of "too much crap happening on screen at once ruining the narrative".

Not so much a Sucker Punch in that respect: we had expected it to screw that much up and it did precisely that.

 

[kurokotetsu]

WHile the analysis may work, there is problem to me: Poe's Law. "The parody of fundamentalism is indistinguishable from the fundamentalism" (rephrasing it, of course). The movie may want to have the message explained in these two videos, but is plays the whole thing so straight that is just exactly as the thing it wants to parody. That is what it feels to me. (Which also means that it may eb a striaght example that Bob if mistaking for a parody). It lost all of its power and meaning by itself.

But well, I'm very literal minded and fixating on details to support an interpretation (although usual for the medium and a lot of arts) feels to me like missing the forest because of the tree. BIt that is just me feeling that Bob is hanging in the tinest details to justify his perception.

 

[Sovereignty]

I liked this movie. It was easily forgettable, but a great weekend movie.

I will say about this video Bob... I loved the whole *super analysis of a poorly received movie*, but you needed to make this one 3 episodes.

I felt like you were seriously cramming too much into this last episode.

Captch: respect me (lol)

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

... and there goes my interest in Sucker Punch.

Really film makers, you had to go attack Third Wave feminism? And badly? Come on - we're not suggesting everyone "save themselves with sexy dances" - we're saying that we should have the right to dress and act as we choose.

The Second Wave "everything sexy is evil" bullshit is just as awful and limiting as being forced to wear dresses and high heels.

Third Wave believes that every woman should have the right to be who she wants to be, with no one telling her otherwise. If she wants to be sexy, she can own it, but she doesn't HAVE to be.

So yeah, my interest in this movie is now dead. **sigh and walks away**

 

[gamingqueen]

You need to come out of the closet bob. You like middle school girls who kick ass and drool over them, nothing wrong with that. Just don't make some thing shallow and fan service-y sound so deep.

 

[SnowBurst]

its still fucking delightful that most of the people of who watched it pirated it so basically shits on the film maker. ive never watched it n never will tbh

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Sarkeesian denounced this as misogyny dressed up as female empowerment. I thought she just didn't get it then and, thanks to Bob, I now have a good reason for believing so. Someone send these vids to her!

I really hope we stop giving her so much power, I feel it turning into her being the foremost authority on what is or isn't feminist/misogynist, the way some of us tried to insist that Roger Ebert was such authority over what is considered art.

 

[pearcinator]

The reason why Starship Troopers and Inglourious Basterds (never heard of that other one) are so good is because it is clear to the audience that its a satire of real life.

The propaganda in Starship Troopers clearly shows the satire...would you like to know more?

Inglourious Basterds is clearly fictional but that wasn't evident right away. The first scene is scarily realistic and brilliant but as soon as the 'Basterds' are shown you know that it is a work of fiction. It was also awesome when they blew Hitler away and then continued to shoot his face to shit. Hilarious!

Suckerpunch fails in demonstrating this because if someone has to explain why a movie is deep, then it isn't. No-one cares why its deep knowing the hidden message behind doesn't change that the movie sucked.

 

[spartan231490]

I'm going to go with: The curtains were fucking blue. Cookie if you get the reference.

 

[Something Amyss]

If I'm in a certain mood I really did this kind of deep analysis of movies. Hunting for metaphors and hidden meanings can be fun. Its hard to know where to stop though. For example its probably safe to assume the curtain call thing at the beginning was put there for a reason. On the other hand, last week MovieBob included the advertising for the film as part of the film's message, and I'm not sure that moviemakers always artistic direction over their posters and trailers.

Yeah, but you can be pretty certain they knew TITTEHS!!!! was going to be part of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

The reason why Starship Troopers and Inglourious Basterds (never heard of that other one) are so good is because it is clear to the audience that its a satire of real life.

Except, at release, Starship Troopers wasn't considered clear.

It's awesome to say it in hindsight, and in fact I was saying it at the time, but most weren't.

Can't speak for Inglorious Basterds, because I can't name a Tarantino movie Except Pulp Fiction I didn't completely despise. But Starship Troopers? Not only did people not take it as satire on face value, there was also the book.

 

[Chakanus]

Brilliant! A very thought-provoking analysis Bob! Please do "Manos: The Hands of Fate" next.

I'll jump start you, shall I?

Manos: The Hands of Fate has been lauded for years as possibly one of the worst movies in cinema history, but those who think so are wrong and I will prove them wrong, because I am right and they are wrong.

The title of the movie is an evocation to the old Greek myth of the Moirae, three women who had the thread of life of every individual (even Gods), being a personification of Fate, of which not even the Gods could escape from.

Likewise, the director has the audience in a situation where they cannot escape from (unless they leave the theater) and he will puppeteer us into questioning what makes an actual movie, by presenting a film with no story, characters, actors, sound, photography or even editing.

Notice that, unlike Fellini's 8 1/2, where we are shown the inner and outer struggles of a director while he is making a movie that is not the one we are watching, Manos is a struggle of the audience and of the movie itself, going into a deeper layer of self-awareness that none other director has tried of yet.

But the movie has more strengths than just questioning how can a movie exist without its parts. The 5-minute car ride where absolutely nothing happens, leaves the audience asking themselves if they aren't suffering a fate worse than death. And even though nothing in the movie actually suggests this, one can be confident enough to say this is a criticism at our society.

Remember, at that time, movie-goers were usually middle-to-upper class, and it's with a great deal of caustic cynicism that the movie "forces" the audience (much like Fate forces events upon our lives) to believe they are the most miserable creature on Earth, even when the audience itself KNOWS there are people dying in Africa, Asia, South America and even struggling with poverty in their own country. They KNOW, but cannot FEEL anything other than utter despair. A despair that is self-inflicted; a reminder of the incapacity of any individual to change the world into a better place. No two hands can change fate.

I could go on, but unfortunately I am far from qualified in this regard; I just hope MovieBob reads this, picks it up and polishes it. Furthermore, I have only seen Manos: The Hands of Fate twice until the end. The other times, when I show it to my friends, they usually give up at the car scene.

 

[Fearzone]

Yeah, it is kind of like a porn flick where the actresses get naked and then pontificate that anyone turned on is some nerd with no life, who will never get laid. Which isn't necessarily a correct assumption around the motives of watching pornography. But any other merit the movie might have had is lost at this point.

Which renders most of the deconstruction in part 2 irrelevant. Not wrong, and maybe interesting enough, but not enough to make a bad movie good.

So, it's a bad movie, and people who think it is a bad movie, which is most people, aren't wrong.

As best I can tell the movie has been mostly forgotten at this point. Does it have any kind of cult following?