Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011) - Zack Snyder

I love Sucker Punch the way Touchy the reformed Molesto-Clown loves summer vacation at an all-boys' Catholic elementary school (or all-girls' school; I'm not going to discriminate): he loves it, but he knows he shouldn't, and secretly there's a pang of shame...but that sadly won't stop him. NOTHING CAN STOP HIM. HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU. HE EATS YOUR SMILES. YOUR FROWNS AND SCREAMS BRING HIM CLOSER....(*cough*) Sorry about that...

I'm seriously torn with this film, and it boils down to two things: the movie is awesome visually, very much an exercise in style; however, it is cheap exploitation wrapped up in a slightly-heavy-handed preachy "grrl power" message that comes off as slightly trite. However...it's so visually beautiful and full of great moments that I still like it. It's...so...difficult having an opinion about something that is paradoxical...
Or is it?
Emily Browning stars as Baby Doll, a 20-year-old girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) looking to get a hold of her inheritance after her mother dies. Once institutionalized, her papers are forged by the corrupt lead orderly Blue Jones (Oscar Isaacs) in order to get her admitted for a lobotomy. Baby Doll conjures up an invented reality wherein she and the other patients of the institution are actually imprisoned in a brothel, and within this reality she conjures up a plan for escape, utilizing the help of Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Emily Cheung). Within this imagined reality, Baby Doll conjures yet another alternate reality, wherein the quests to acquire the tools of their escape are visualized as literal battles in strange, alien lands. The film keeps this charade up rather well, until abandoning it at the end of the second act, which is something I wish hadn't happened. Even though the audience knows how the ending is going to play out (and happily forgets the set-up until the last 5 minutes of the film), we're still excited to see how Baby Doll is going to get out of the institution (or brothel, as it's that reality that's really at play in the film, and not the institution part).
This is a case of a fantasy within a fantasy (within a fantasy: the film itself opens up on a stage, whereupon the events of the opening scene of the film play out.) In fact, nothing about this film is real, and, perhaps, nothing in it matters because it never really happened (even in the context of the film's reality: again, the film begins on a stage. It's almost as if everyone and everything in the film knows it's inconsequential and they're just joyfully eschewing any sort of pretense otherwise). That being said, it was still a blast to watch the escalating set-pieces (my favorite being the steampunk WWI trench battle scene replete with bunny-faced mech suit. Wow...that is a sentence that describes something I can watch...), and it's truly during these sequences that the film flourishes. In fact, if the film had been a series of vignettes with the main characters just hopping from reality to reality and fighting hordes after hordes of monsters...I would not have complained. Sort of a live-action Heavy Metal...)
Speaking of which...
I'm not entirely sure how to address the exploitation of the girls in this film. I say "girls" and not "women" because they're designed to look much much younger than they are (Baby Doll is 20, but she looks about 11), and despite that, they're still very much invested in how sexy they can appear while still kicking ass. I take this to be more an attempt to facilitate the male fantasy of what we wish ass-kicking women looked and acted like (not to say that Ellen Ripley or Emma Peel or Honey Rider or Bonnie Parker or Beatrix Kiddo don't have their place in the list of badass women...), a direct result of the influx and influence of comic books in our modern film culture. At the same time though, while the girls are sexualized in their attire, they're not sexualized entirely in their attitudes: they use the prospect of sex (rather than the act itself) to influence others and achieve their goals, and the one aspect of the film that should be the most vividly sexual prospect, the one thing that stops every character in their tracks and in fact propels the plot (and perpetuates the fantasies), is in fact never seen: Baby Doll's dance. We can only imagine what it is based on the reactions of everyone else in the film...but that's all we can do: imagine it. After watching a bunny-face mechsuit trample steampunk Germans, or a dragons chase down a prop-driven bomber, or a lone girl take on and defeat 3 giant stone samurai, there shouldn't be much else to imagine. And it would be weird for me to even point out the sexism and exploitative nature of the film, because that might be the point: all of Baby Doll's fantasies involve images of exploited girls...even the ones where they're the heroes and kicking fantastic ass. Although this might be just the male mind imagining what an exploited girl might imagine herself imagining? Perhaps. Or maybe it's just good old fashioned exploitation? An elaborate exploitation film given a massive budget and special effects and great production design and gussied up as a fantasy film, but actually slightly more tasteful than the exploitative films of the 1970's because...well...no women get raped? And all the violence is imagined?
Maybe the film just relishes being exploitative because, well, fuck it, let's not tiptoe around pleasing everyone nowadays, let's not be polite and inoffensive and safe. Maybe Joe Wright is correct in calling this film "bullshit" and "exploitation disguised as empowerment"....it's still a damn good ride, as good a damn ride as his Hanna was, but without the goofy plot point (still not revealing what it is in Hanna). To me, this is a much more tame version of the resurgence of the exploitative thriller genre, much as Death Proof and Kill Bill were. And you know what? I'm okay with that. The film itself acknowledges the fact that it is a fantasy, and if we, the audience, can't remember that when the movie starts off onstage, then we shouldn't be going to the movies should we?
Anyway...
The production design is beautiful on this film, and editor William Hoy and cinematographer Larry Fong create beautiful counterpoints to each other. The Zach-Snyder-slo-mo action is in full effect here, but here it seems oddly necessary (unlike in Watchmen, where it seriously should have been avoided at all costs): revving the action as he does works not to make it more exciting, but to make it more fantastic. However, there were a few shots where this effect created some seriously stunning images, such as Baby Doll performing a backflip in the air as flames explode in the background; or the sword-cam (if you see the movie, you'll know what I mean). Snyder stages the action with a bit more clarity this time around (aside from the Jupiter train heist), and Tyler Bates' and Marius de Vries' score, while understated for most of the film, compliments the set pieces perfectly (true, most of the music cues are covers of pop songs, but they're still utilized damned well...the use "Tomorrow Never Knows" during the train heist added the aural kick to the visual one.) This is very much an art department movie...which, again is fine, so long as the final result is as beautiful as this.
One can almost count down all the references to pop culture that the film plays with and employs: zombies? Check. Steampunk? Check. Anime? Check? Dragons/fantasy? Check. Science fiction? Check. The film is a complete hodgepodge of all the visually tasty goodness that makes pop culture exciting and refreshing. Snyder creates something out of the mishmash of disparate parts, something visually exciting to look at, and at least flirting with an interesting subtext (although I do wish Tarantino would utilize this ability more often: enough with the movie mix-tapes, and let's get back to telling an interesting story. Give us another Jackie Brown! Okay...well, give me another one...)
The film does have its flaws. Again, the most glaring is the exploitation, but if you can get past that, then the next is the makeup. I know it's supposed to look gaudy and staged...but still Carla Gugino's "mole" was too fucking distracting, and her accent unbearable. And it might seem odd for me to say this after praising it two paragraphs ago, but the use of "Sweet Dreams" for the opening scene seemed to be much too obvious (although it wasn't as horrible as Snyder's use of "Hallelujah" in Watchmen...wow. That was horrible). I know Snyder isn't known for his subtlety, but still...the last act abandons the pretense of the previous two, forgoing with the "action fantasy" aspect of Baby Doll's fantasy, and instead just staying in the "stuck in a brothel" fantasy. After going all-out for so long, I wish it would have stayed in that realm for just a bit longer. And, finally...Jon Hamm's character. I won't reveal what he does, but at the end, he displays (and then talks about, excessively) a bit of doubt that he'd had. He does a pretty important job in the film, and apparently his character had been doing this job for a while, and had been wondering why he had been called so often. But yet, he just continues with what he does, and doesn't talk about any doubt or worries he'd been having until it's much too late. Also, the fucking voice-over that bookends the film. Get rid of it, just walk out of the theater after the last shot, before it starts up. Talk about heavy-handed.
You know, now that I think of it, I think this truly is meant to be an empowering "grrl power" sort of film...it just got developed by a director who cannot do (and seems incapable of doing) subtlety. My biggest qualm with Watchmen was its overacting (for the most part) and the rote characterizations (especially for Rorschach). That film glorified the violence where the source material didn't...it wasn't making the characters or violence (or even the plot) over-the-top or theatrical or exciting. It just was. Like real life, the characters and situations just occurred and that was that: it was complex and messy. The film seemed to telegraph how the audience was to respond and react (remember when Rorschach killed his first victim? Read the graphic novel to see how much more creepy and complex a character he should have been). And 300...well, I hate that movie. Here, the film is honestly trying to empower its characters, but it does so with the wit and sophistication of a 12-year-old boy. Again, I'm okay with that, knowing that that's just the sort of director that Snyder is. His heart is in the right place, and he put on a great show, but at the end of the day, it's just pretty girls doing kick-ass things to an impressive soundtrack and visuals. He just doesn't seem to know how to be nuanced, or how to create any subtlety at all. Maybe that's why that awful voice over is there.

It was a good show, it's ABOUT TIME Jena Malone shows up on the radar again, and I, for the life of me, want a mech suit. I just hope Snyder manages to bring something much more subdued to The Man Of Steel...if I go see it, that is. I'm kind of done with the Superman origin onscreen...and I'm WELL beyond being done with Zod. Man.

Watchmen

Watchmen

Zack Snyder almost did what directors and producers such as Joel Silver, Terry Gilliam, and Paul Greengrass (amongst others) stalled: he almost made a Watchmen movie. Almost. He came close. The characters are all there (or at least 90% there), the plot is the same (except for a change in the the villain's MO, one which I actually didn't mind), and some of the themes are mentioned.
But Snyder is not one for subtlety. At all. And that is this film's largest problem: it's a film with so many ideas and themes and characters commanded by a director whose previous films are a decent zombie film remake and a bombastic, nihilistic adaptation of a graphic novel by an author who has lost sense of subtlety. To give him reign over a complex story such as Watchmen wasn't the worst crime in the world, but it wasn't the smartest move either. It's like a man with developing cataracts was asked to drive a schoolbus of open cans of paint. Sure, he'll get them to where they need to go, but in the process he'll take some detours, wrong turns, and dead ends and every individual color and shade will get mixed into a warped blur. But it's a pretty blur...or something (wow, what a bizarre metaphor I'd concocted right there).
But while I didn't hate the film, there are reservations I have (the old-age make-up, the Nixon make-up, Malin Ackerman's stiff performance, a complete lack of nuance and subtlety from some of the actors and themes), and there are some things Snyder did that added to the story.
First off, the ending HAD to change. There was no way the batshit-insane-climax from the graphic novel would translate well on screen, and the way Snyder worked aroudn that worked...although the aftermath of the villain's destruction is merely hinted at: an act of destruction in each of the world's major cities that kills millions, and what we witness are a wide shot, and a few moments of Dr. Manhattan and Laurie walking around a crater where 42nd Street should be. The scope of destruction, and the toll it takes on both the villain and the heroes, are muted significantly from the graphic novel, and, as a movie, become a spectacle without depth. The audience doesn't understand the scope of the villain's plot because the aftermath isn't shown the way it should have been. (Not only that...but the villain himself is barely featured in the film AT ALL).
Then again, the lack of violence in that scene is more than made up for within the rest of the film, but not always the way it should have been done (in my opinion). For a film attempting to deal with mature themes and situations (rape, separated parents, abusive childhood, failing to live up to your parent's ideals, etc. etc.), I thought the violence was goofy. The opening fight scene, set to Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" was well staged, and the slow-motion shot of the Comedian falling out of the window worked...but later in the iflm the violence becomes too stylized, too slick, and too blatantly bloody. Snyder is no doubt an adept action director...but Watchmen is not at all an action movie. While the graphic novel certainly had moments that could translate well on screen (Dr. Manhattan's self-imposed exile to Mars; the prison breakout; Laurie and Dan's attempted mugging), in Snyder's hands those scenes (aside from the Mars sequence, which was pitch-perfect) become spectacle, yet another superhero scene, and the violence (along with the CGI-added blood) become at once both more intense and wholly unbelievable. Had Snyder shot the action without the aid of slow-mo effects (which he used less extensively than in 300, yet still often enough to to notice and thus take me out of the movie).
And although I'm trying to differentiate between the graphic novel and the film and to view the film on its own terms, the film owes so much to the source material as to make it impossible to separate. In fact, if the graphic novel hadn't existed, a film like this might not have been considered at all: a big budget, two-and-a-half-hour superhero film with little action, psychotic characters, a convoluted plot set in an alternate 1985 and featuring no-name actors (face it: Carla Gugino, Billy Crudup and former child-star Jackie Earle Haley are the biggest names this film has)? No one would consider a film like that without it being based on a previous medium.
Snyder does pull a lot of things together nicely, however. The aforementioned opening credits were perfect, and summed up nearly five-decades' worth of backstory without slowing down the film and was itself shot beautifully; the Mars sequence (my favorite in the graphic novel and in the film) was perfect; and Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup were absolutely perfect as Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach respectively (it was the Mickey Rourke-as-Marv-in-Sin City sort of perfection).
When Snyder put aside the theatrics and actually allowed emotion (REAL emotion) to enter into the scene, the film clicks. He understood the distance Manhattan felt towards the rest of mankind, a being so beyond any of us that his detatchment is evident in his voice and every nuance of mannerism. He understood the alienation of Rorschach, coming form a broken "home" and forced to work the streets...but still just barely missed explaining why exactly he became a vigilante. The subtlties of Dan's impotence were hinted at...but never explanded upon. Half the time I felt as if Snyder had done it, he'd adapted the unadapatable. But the other half...it felt like he as winging it ("You guys want Big Figure? Here's a midget overacting." "You guys want the rape scene to be intense? Here's the whole thing with exaggerrated sound effects and oddly overacting on Jefferey Dean Morgan's part." "You guys want a prison riot? Here it is in SUPER SLOW MOTION".)
At the end of the day I felt like what small moments of greatness and many moments of decentness combined with the terrible decisions, the ill-advised decisions, and the miscasting to provide a barely decent adaptation of the most dense graphic novel (and arguably the greatest) ever written. Alan Moore was right: Watchmen can't be adapted successfully as a film. This is as close as we've gotten. This isn't so much a review of the film as it is a comparison between the film and the movie, and I think that's fine since the film is too devoted to the source material to truly transcend it and become its own thing.

I was really hoping he'd nailed it too.

Oh, and when I saw the movie there was an 8-year-old (or thereabouts) in the audience, and my favorite moment came when Rorschach hacks a rapist to death, and the kid screams, "I saw the blood hit his mask!"

And you know what's immature? People giggling like little children every time they saw Dr. Manhattan's giant blue space dick. (In fact, his nudity is one of the prime reasons why the film is a commercial failure. Go figure. Welcome to 2009)