Review: Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch proves one thing once and for all: Zack Snyder is a madman. In addition to being one of the most visually gifted storytellers to emerge in the past twenty years, Snyder has something of a fevered imagination. This was allowed to shine in 300 due to Frank Miller’s insanely heightened story, but was more subdued for Watchmen where Snyder was beholden (sometimes to a fault) to the vision of Alan Moore. Here, working for the first time from his own script, he holds nothing back, filling the frame with so much stylized, geek fetish imagery as to completely overwhelm the senses. Whether or not that is a good thing is subject to much debate, however.

Sucker Punch begins with Babydoll being imprisoned in a mental institution by her wicked stepfather after he frames her for the murder of her younger sister. She won’t be an issue, assures head orderly Blue (Oscar Isaac), because in just a few days a specialist will come to lobotomize her. There is a Doctor there (Carla Guigno) who plays music for the inmates in an attempt to help them escape this harsh reality. Just before the Specialist (Jon Hamm) is about to drive the needle into her skull, Babydoll imagines herself in a different kind of prison, a brothel, where she and her friends are captive to Blue (now a pimp) and Madame Gorski, who teaches them how to dance in order to seduce the male clientele. In five days the High Roller will come for Babydoll, so she and her allies must forge a plan to escape, which involve escaping into yet another fantasy realm, where they must accomplish various tasks like getting a map from a Zombie German WWI soldier or slaying a baby dragon. Aided by a helpful older man (Scott Glenn), the girls must try and fight for their survival.

If that synopsis seems a little bit nuts, you have no idea. This film is utterly unhinged from anything that we might call “objective reality.” The third level of strange dreamscapes is filled to the brim with touchstones of geek culture. You’ve got zombies (of sorts), dragons, robots, samurai, samurai holding GIANT BAZOOKAS, mech-suits and more. At first glance it would seem that Snyder has simply vomited up all of his influences, all his little obsessions and fetishes and smeared them on the screen. There is no doubt to me that Snyder does find all of this overwhelmingly awesome, and at moments I’m inclined to agree with him: The first dreamscape in which Babydoll faces off against 10-foot tall samurai while Bjork’s “Army of Me” blares in the background is breathtaking in it’s awesomeness, as is the one shot sequence aboard a train as our heroes decimate an army of robots. However, it does become a bit much at some point, leaving the viewer feeling drained as one “badass” moment is piled on top of another. There are other problems as well. Characters are thinly drawn, more types than anything else and the dialogue is alternately purple and insipid. Snyder doesn’t linger on those too long however, throwing us always into the next spectacle.

Although there are many self-consciously “cool” moments, is there anything else? Snyder has often fended off criticism that his films are the epitome of “all style, no substance.” While I feel this criticism is a bit unfair, I certainly see where it is coming from. However, I think that as far as Sucker Punch is concerned that criticism isn’t applicable. One could most certainly argue that the style overwhelms the substance, but there is definitely something larger at work within this film than “Ninjadragongatlinggun.” Snyder is exploring (or trying to at least) the exploitation of women by men and the possibility of their escape from that sort of exploitation. All the men in the film are thoroughly despicable creatures, driven to murder, rape or otherwise violate and exploit these women. The only exception is Scott Glenn’s character, a wise old man who exists to give the women their mission objectives and dispense hilariously unhelpful advice (“Never write a check with your mouth that you can’t cash with your ass”). In the first two realities, the women are given few options other than being forced to do erotic danced or rotting away in a mental institution. So what of the fantasy dreamscapes? As these girls fight their way through these worlds, dressed in skimpy outfits to look like every female video-game character ever, are they empowering themselves? Or are they putting on another show, one now for the heavily male-dominated geek audience who revel in these sorts of spectacles in films, comic books and videogames? Crucially, this last level of reality is revealed to us every time Babydoll does her seductive dance for a patron of the brothel. Perhaps Snyder is arguing that by explicitly taking control, whether of their sexuality in the brothel or of a mech suit and machine guns in the fantasy world, these women can empower themselves and escape their hellish, male-dominated surroundings. Or perhaps he’s being more pessimistic, suggesting that no matter how hard they struggle to escape harsh reality they are still under control of men, always playing their games by their rules.

Or perhaps Snyder isn’t aware of any of this. Maybe he’s unaware of any sort of subtext the film might hold. Maybe he just wants an excuse to show us all those things he would seem to be condemning. Directorial intent is not my concern, however. I’m concerned with what’s on the screen and what’s is on the screen in Sucker Punch is something of a marvel, an $85 million big studio film that is also a fascinating tangle of ideas about issues of female empowerment. I’m thrilled that a film this interesting and this flawed has been released on 3000+ screens. I’m thrilled that one man was allowed to express himself totally using the budgetary and marketing might of the studio system. If it happened like this more often Hollywood would be a better place.

Sucker Punch is a film that left me reeling with a multitude of conflicting feelings and thoughts. So much doesn’t work at all, and yet I keep returning to what does work and how idiosyncratic this whole effort is. Don’t let the overly dismissive critical notices fool you; this is a film worth seeing for yourself to make up your own mind. There’s an even chance that you’ll hate it, but if it works at all for you then it will work in a big way. If it’s a failure then here’s hoping to more failures like this one.