Sucker Punch
Ed Owens

There's a sequence late in Zack Snyder's visually stunning and inherently vacant music video cum feature length film Sucker Punch that easily serves as a scale model of the film itself, a nearly seven minute "continuous" take that follows three girls fighting their way through hordes of robots occupying a lengthy bullet train (I say "continuous" because the single shot is actually 120 different shots heavily stitched together with CGI)--while it may be fun to watch at first, it rapidly outstays its welcome, especially once you realize that there's not much more to it narratively, thematically, or substantively. Throw in the fact that that sequence ends by throwing the more discerning audience members a heartily contrived emotional bone, and the above criticisms apply in nearly equal measure to the movie as a whole.

Born of a collaboration between visual wunderkind director Snyder (who has yet to meet a green screen he didn't like) and film school friend Steve Shibuya, Sucker Punch establishes its premise and tone early with a borderline brilliant opening sequence in which we meet Baby Doll (Emily Browning), the oldest of two girls left in the care of an abusive step father. When a horrifying confrontation leads to a tragic accident, Baby Doll ends up being committed, withdrawing into a fantasy world to escape the horrors of her institutionalized reality. Unfortunately, that opening sequence, a near perfectly self-contained music video for the Emo set, is where the brilliance ends. While the pieces are there, Snyder never quite puts them all together, particularly when it comes to developing actual characters to care about--our reactions are less about concern for specific characters than visceral reactions to contrived hot-button situations which make us cringe or wince instinctively. Snyder's attempts at emotional resonance come off as simultaneously pretentious and simplistic, and sometimes even horrifically misguided. Yet, the brief synopsis above credits the film with more coherence and substance than it actually possesses, the narrative being little more than a skeletal framework on which to hang the films stylish excesses.

And what stylish excesses they are! Snyder riffs on everything from anime to steampunk to "Lord of the Rings"-style fantasy action. There is no question that Snyder excels at creating eye-popping visuals, and he delivers some doozies here. Every time Baby Doll retreats into one of her inner fantasies, usually brought on by having to dance for leering men (see next paragraph for a specific comment about the thematic implications of this particular plot device), the film bombards us with so much sensory stimulation that you don't so much take it all in as get pummeled by it. Whether or not you find such an assault "entertaining" will depend on your tolerance for such empty-headed and abusive spectacle. Even those who live for such things (I have to confess to occasionally being one of those) will find themselves tested as the fantasies are both repetitive and overly long. Watching Baby Doll do slow motion flips over enemies is the same regardless of who the enemies are, be they samurais, steampunk nazis, or a massive dragon. Even when Snyder gets creative, such as the aforementioned bullet train sequence, he still manages to belabor it to the point of making it...dare I say?...tired and dull. I often found myself wondering when a particular fantasy sequence was going to end rather than being thrilled by it.

As to some of the more problematic implications of Snyder's film, the phrase "female empowerment" has been thrown around considerably by those involved. I have to say that I'm not sure which I find more distasteful, the fact that Snyder et. al. are insisting on this line of defense or that the film's idea of "female empowerment" essentially boils down to a victim finding her happy place. What starts out as Baby Doll retreating to escape the horrors of being forcibly objectified eventually turns on itself with her voluntarily objectifying herself in order to escape her reality--in fact, the film goes so far as to establish a correlation between her psychological sabbaticals and the level of her objectification (Snyder has argued that this is a "reversal," an example of a woman using her sexuality as a means of gaining the upper hand...I would argue that the implied position that a woman can only gain the upper hand by participating in her own objectification is inherently problematic, and not at all what the term "female empowerment" means). I can only assume that Snyder himself is blind to some of the more disturbing thematic implications of his own narrative, given that the thought that anyone would try to seriously argue that the film's subtext is all about girl power is just too laughable to be taken seriously. Further, the film's particularly dark world view and nearly humorless execution (a darkly humorous..and I mean pitch black...scene involving orderly / pimp Oscar Isaac's "pep talk" to the girls is actually quite funny, but also serves as the exception that proves the rule) effectively undermine what little enjoyment might have been derived from the fantasy sequences--somehow being in the mind of a woman on display is more creepy and pathetic than liberating and engaging.

In the past I've been an unapologetic Snyder fan--Dawn of the Dead was a slick remake that kept the essence of Romero's original while adding a stylish sheen; 300 was enjoyable as meticulously crafted eye candy, and Watchmen was a sharp adaptation of what many considered to be an unfilmable graphic novel. None of them was perfect, but each of them had strengths to recommend them. With Sucker Punch, Snyder has not only magnified his narrative weaknesses (this is his first original film), but turned what most would consider to be his asset of stylish visuals into a liability. As a DVD set of fantasy short films that you could watch individually (then you wouldn't need a narrative throughline, even a thin one), Sucker Punch would make for effective tech demos / visual showcases; as a feature film, it's a rambling, ambitious mess at best and an offensive affront at worst.

Recommended for: people who have fifteen minutes to kill before the film they actually bought tickets for starts.

©2011 Ed Owens
CineScene