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Monday, April 04, 2011

"Sucker Punch" review

Sucker Punch (2011)



Director: Zack Snyder






Emily Browning ... Baby Doll


Abbie Cornish ... Sweet Pea


Jena Malone ... Rocket


Vanessa Hudgens ... Blondie


Jamie Chung ... Amber


Carla Gugino ... Dr. Vera Gorski


Oscar Isaac ... Blue Jones


Jon Hamm ... High Roller / Doctor


Scott Glenn ... Wise Man



Baby Doll gets sent to the insane asylum. Her evil stepfather wants to lobotomize her so she doesn't cause any more hassles. Baby Doll can't take the overbearing reality of her life so she escapes into a fantasy world. She envisions the mental hospital as a brothel and her jailers as her employers. In an effort to break free from the prison, she gives herself tasks to complete so she can reach the next level of freedom. It is only through the power of her seductive dancing that she can distract the evil men in her life into giving her what she needs. But in order to dance with the power of a demon stripper, she must escape into yet another level of fantasy. She dreams of worlds where samurai monsters, Nazi's made of steam and angry dragons attack her and her loyal hot babe inmates. Baby Doll can only live in her dream world and we're right there living with her in Snyders, I mean, Baby Doll's vivid imagination.


I was unprepared. I thought "Sucker Punch" was going to be a wild ride in some fantasy world where women with machine guns attack various malevolent creatures. I had no idea what the movie was about but I figured any movie with hot women with guns can't be all bad. It helped knowing that the director is a fan of genre movies. Surely, he would not steer this ship wrong. While Snyder doesn't exactly steer his vessel into a giant iceberg, this ship is still way off course. Where was his genre loving compass pointing him on this one? Ego is a terrible thing. It has led him astray.


"Sucker Punch" is not a complete disaster but it is surely a disappointment. This movie is a pointless exercise. It screams for more of those lovely exploitative elements we all cherish. It was only after the movie was over I realized "Sucker Punch" was rated PG-13. There is no nudity in this women's prison movie. For shame. You have a handful of hot women fighting for their freedom and not one gratuitous shower scene to wash off some blood? I thought Snyder was a fan of these movies. Where is the love man?


Speaking of disappointments, why didn't we ever get to see Baby Doll dance? I was ready to see Baby Doll arch her back and shake her hips so I could fall under her spell too. Instead she retreats into her video game world of dragons and monsters. Is this what women dream about when they try to seduce men? Who knew they fantasized about such things?


But the ultimate disappointment is when you realize that these fantasy sequences, while being the most appealing scenes in the film, are meaningless. They are action scenes playing out in Baby Doll's head. They have no bearing on the plot nor do they cause any sense of suspense as we know Baby doll can dance her way out of any fire breathing dragon situation. Once Baby Doll finishes dancing, the movie goes back to the drab world of the asylum/bordello and we wait patiently for Baby Doll to put her dancing shoes back on.


"Sucker Punch" has some interesting fight scenes but overall it's disappointing. But I wonder if "Sucker Punch" will be one of those movies that we'll look back on later in life and kick ourselves for not realizing the genius that was evident in it? Ehh, probably not. "Sucker Punch" is a collection of fantasy scenes that Snyder wanted to ram down our throats. He didn't want to wait to film all of them separately so he came up with this Alice in Prisonland mishmash of a movie. While I find it hard to argue against a movie with samurai monsters, you can probably let "Sucker Punch" and its dreaming dancing girl go.


SCORE: 2.5 out of 4 baby doll squads

5 comments:

the sneering (homo-phobic) snob said...

You know the 5 birds in this film, well...guess what...thats right...i want to bugger all of them (as they were when they were all 18 not as they are now obviously). Yes i know they`re still all gorgeous birds in their 20`s but it would still be better to have buggered them when they were 18. 5 years can be very cruel to a gorgeous 18 year-old bird, it can turn her into a not quite so gorgeous 23 year-old bird. As i`ve said before, never waste your time buggering a 25 or 27 year-old bird if you can get your knob up some gorgeous 18 year-old birds bum instead. 18 is when a bird is in the prime of her life and at the absolute pinnacle and peak of her physical attractiveness and desirability and dont ever let anyone tell you different.

the sneering (homo-phobic) snob said...

Actually i just looked at the pictures of Carla Gugino on IMDB and although the bird is pushing 40 shes still quite pretty, i`d have loved to have poked that birds arse with my knob in 1989 when the bird was 18, i bet the bird was an amazing little darlin` back in those days. 18, the birds have got to be 18, or certainly no older than 22 at most.

Dr. Gore said...

Agree on Carla Gugino. I've liked her for awhile. I wanted to like Baby Doll, (Emily Browning), but her perpetually rosy cheeks and lack of nudity in this film cooled me down. Still nice though.

the sneering (homo-phobic) snob said...

True, Emily is a right gorgeous little darlin` and at 22 the bird is just with-in the age range i was talking about, her looks wont last that much longer though, which is a real shame.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Gore, I actually think this movie WILL be re-appraised in the future as a masterwork.