I’ve been excited to see this movie since the first trailer. I’m a big fan of Zach Snyder’s films. Watchmen, 300, Dawn of the Dead and even the Legend of the Guardians, were all beautifully directed films. When I heard Snyder was directing Superman I was very happy and curious to see how it would turn out. After hearing that Sucker Punch got bad reviews I was upset. “How could it be bad It looked so good!” Now that I’ve seen the film I’ve decided that sometimes reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about. (And obviously I know better)
After her mother’s death a young woman and her younger sister is forced to live with her step father. When the lecherous old man tries to rape the little girl big sister tries to defend her with a gun. It misfires and kills the little girl. To get control of her inheritance and silence any testimony big sister would have against him, step dad sends her to an asylum and bribes the chief orderly to fake some paperwork and get her lobotomized. The doctor will be there in five days. This is where the trippyness begins. Instead of choosing to see herself in an asylum she visualizes the world around her as a new inductee into a high end brothel. The lobotomy doctor becomes the “High Roller” a man who is patronizing the brothel to deflower our big sister. Dr. Gorski who is well intentioned but oblivious to the asylum’s corruption, becomes a madame who is protective but unable to defend the girls under her charge from sexual abuse. The chief orderly becomes Blue, a class A scum bucket pimp who dominates the asylum and is the film’s main villain. As for our big sister, she’s named Babydoll, and makes friends with other working girl/dancers Rocket, Sweetpea, Amber, and Blondie. With her new friends, the quintet comes up with a plan to escape. They need a few items to do so. Babydoll distracts the pimps by dancing while her friends pick their pockets for the items. And thus it gets trippyer. Instead of showing any of her dances, the film delves deeper into into Babydoll’s fantasy and depicts, epic jaw dropping battles. The quintet are transformed into amazing heroes fighting dragons, orcs, robots and steam powered world war one zombie soldiers. As our heroines bounce between fantasy worlds with Blue hot on their trail the line between reality and the dream world is blurred. There were a few gaps I would like filled in. What was real, what was fake? Did anybody die or were they lobotomized? Who got their comeuppance? Yet as much as I would like it filled in, ambiguity creates interesting points for debate. It’s a neat look inside the mind of someone who’s most likely crazy. The best I can figure Babydoll creates a brothel fantasy because the patients are being sexually abused. Yet again maybe the sexual abuse was simply metaphorical.
Visuals are a strong point of Zach Snyder’s movies. The trailers alone for Sucker Punch should win awards for pretty art. The fantasy battles are rendered vivid dynamic world blending genres. The fights were choreographed money shots favoring slow motion. They were very similar to the battles in Watchmen and 300. Though there was a murky video game quality to the fight scenes, I think it was intentional to heighten the idea it was a dream world. There was some interesting camera work done as well. Sweatpea, Rocket, Blondie, and Amber, are talking in the brothel’s dressing room. The camera pans past them showing the backs of their heads. The audience sees their reflections in the vanity mirror. The camera continues to rotate around the girls moving through a window and coming to a stop. The reflections are shown to be real life and the backs of the heads are actually on the other side of the mirror, really reflections. Without coming out and saying it they shows the audience we’re through the looking glass. Even stubble queues added depth to it. When Babydoll arrives in the asylum her make up is smeared to accentuate her tear stains. As soon as she hears the plans to lobotomize her, her makeup is clean again telling us she no longer is in emotional shock.
I felt the most interesting aspect of this movie was the way sexualization of the characters is used. In the asylum the girls ad dressed very plainly. Their clothes are baggy hospital gowns and rags which don’t reveal their bodies much. Babydoll in particular has an air of child like innocence about her wearing pink. Once we arrive in the brothel fantasy everyone is glamorously adorned in over the top skin tight bustiers, giant fake eyelashes, copious amounts of makeup, and plenty of skin. Sure with a cast of gorgeous women the its eye candy for the male audience, but from the point of view of a red blooded male with a staunch record of heterosexuality, I didn’t find this titillating. In fact it was the opposite. These poor girls are over sexualized to the point of objectification, and there in lies the point. Sweetpea in her first line points out how this isn’t sexy. She says something to the effect that there is a degree of fantasy in a naughty school girl or even someone who’s a little crazy, but a lobotomized mental patient being taken advantage of sexually is tantamount to pedophilia. If the patients are being taken advantage of, its logical that Babydoll would see them as sex slaves. The brothel is their gilded cage. Once the dream goes into deeper fantasy the girls are still dressed in a sexy manner but instead of being the victims, here they are heroines. Their lingerie is replaced with sexy armor and combat gear. They no longer look like they being taken advantage of. They’re the ones taking advantage of others. Sex is no longer a weapon used against them, its a weapon they’re wielding themselves. It makes sense that the 5 heroines are decked out with giant guns and swords, all fruedian falic symbols. Once we are returned to the real world, and our escapee finds freedom, she is wearing a virginal white dress. It’s as though she’s reclaimed her innocence and independence. She no longer is dressed in hospital garb as a crazy person. She no longer looks like a fantasy plaything for corrupt men. She doesn’t even have to be a warrior in the deepest fantasy. She can be a person now. This isn’t necessarily a depiction of empowered women, but depiction of finding power when you’re weak, objectified, and abused.
Sucker Punch wasn’t perfect. It could have developed the characters more, and there were a few plot holes. This can be attributed to it being a fantasy inside of a dream, within the mind of a lunatic. Just as 300 was a supposed to be a war story told to rally the troops against the enemy, Sucker Punch employs an unreliable narrator. The plot is fairly straight forward but its an action movie ripe with escapist fantasy. Not every action film needs to be a Dark Knight, Inception, or the Matrix with a billion twists and turns, or head scratching logic. I didn’t watch this and turn my brain off for its 2 hour long run time. The escapist fantasy was used just as it is needed to, to escape reality. I was intrigued to figure out what was going on, and can make my own decisions as to what was real and fake. I wouldn’t put it up for best picture, but that doesn’t mean Sucker Punch doesn’t deserve more respect from the reviews its had. It was a dark, edgy, visually splendid action-fantasy, with more than enough depth to question reality, and plenty of symbolism to sink your teeth into. I thought this film was great, and definitely worth the exorbitant $11.00 admission price.
On a scale of 1 to Epic (Epic =10) this Film gets a 9.1 in my book.