Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch has just walked it's first painful, yet necessary steps toward becoming a bona-fide cult classic and indisputable turning point in the evolution of cinema as an art form. It's come in 2nd at the box office, losing it's opening weekend to a low rent kiddie flick, making a dismal 19 million. It's also taken a brutal drubbing at the hands of the critical establishment and been on the receiving end of some of the nastiest derision the online nerd community has ever dished out. I would hope most sensible people with any understanding of the ebb and flow of film could brush aside the short sighted nay saying of stodgy, unimaginative cinema scribes and ignore ignorant venom spewed by the veritable masters of the vitriolic and vulgar put down. The problem with the internet (oh, so very many problems) as far as online film discussion is concerned, is that there are so many voices, the simplest way to get yours noticed is to be the loudest, angriest and ugliest. While that might get your page a pile of hits and might make for a fleeting, one sided laugh here and there, it does nothing for the intelligent, thoughtful exploration of cinema as a serious art form.

The riddle of Sucker Punch is two-fold. The first layer of debate must address the films complicated content and how it fearlessly challenges its intended audiences ingrained attitude toward women. Men have proven time and again with their words and dollars they explicitly endorse the infantilizing and sexualizing of female characters in film beyond all reason and rationale. Now here comes a movie with something to say about the lascivious male gaze and how it more or less forces women into a literal and figurative corner. Not only in terms of how they fight for their own freedom, power and independence, but also with what tools they have been afforded. Whether through the metaphor of the insane asylum or the burlesque house, this film is about women who have been damaged by abuse, forced into servitude by a leering patriarchy and have to judiciously use their sexuality as a weapon to fight tooth and nail for every inch of their own empowerment. I'm not suggesting that every woman in the world is essentially a stripper or a prostitute, just that every woman is all too keenly aware of being watched, judged and leered at, whether they're dancing on a stage, standing in line at the grocery store or pumping gas. They exist in a culture that demands physical perfection and walk a tight rope of either being ostracized for not conforming to that standard or relentlessly objectified for having the audacity to wear clothes that fit.

Sucker Punch has, in my opinion, raised the considerable ire of fanboys, not for the temerity of its supposed hypocrisy, but for choosing to make a group of likable, intelligent young women actual action heroes. These women are a formidable fighting force that work together to achieve clearly defined goals and do so while being unmistakably feminine. Yes, they wear clothes that accent their form, but no more so than the skimpy, muscle revealing and nowhere near battlefield-appropriate attire male action stars have worn throughout the years. When I was watching the women of Sucker Punch make their way through the trench warfare sequence, I was struck by how much ass they were kicking, not by how good their asses looked. I think a lot of dudes are disgusted by this movie because they wanted to get an eyeful of pouty babes in fetish gear and instead were confronted with a film that treated the women like flesh and blood characters whose plight we were interested and invested in. The fact that they looked fantastic is secondary and a by-product of the dismissive regard their loutish captors hold them in. Not exactly the sort of subtext 19 year old boys who have only had a serious relationship with online pornography want to be faced with while watching an action/fantasy film. I'm not saying this film is the be-all end-all treatise on feminism in the modern age or anything, just that it deserves a great deal more thought put into its appraisal than most are giving it and that it should be commended for tackling such a difficult issue in such an entertaining and absorbing fashion.

The second matter to be addressed when dissecting Sucker Punch is the boldness of how it visually presents its narrative and the truly next level shit going on with how Snyder is putting it up there on the screen. People are calling this film a mess and saying it rips off the dream level motif of Inception. Both of those claims are patently ridiculous. There was no point anywhere in this film that I didn't understand exactly what was going on: who was doing what, why they were doing it, what the stakes were, what items represented and so on and so forth. No small feat considering Snyder doesn't bother to explain how he's going to convey his story, he just does it. That is the mark of a true auteur. He simply puts it on the screen and it's up to you to get on board and keep up with him. I loved Inception when I saw it in the theater and revelled in the layer after layer of hidden meaning and subtext and spirited debate it occasioned, yet after purchasing the bluray and trying to watch it at home, I couldn't get more than 40 minutes in before shutting it off. Inception is a math problem I've already solved. I could give a fuck less about Dom Cobb and his team of dream thieves and his imaginary wife and kids. Sucker Punch however has the potential to be endlessly, imminently re watchable, because it's pure visceral and emotional impact populated by characters I actually like and care about trying to accomplish something I can get behind. You don't have to suffer through pages of plodding exposition to get to the thrills and the heart of Sucker Punch, it pulls you breathlessly into and through its gorgeous, fascinating world from the first frame to the last. I've seen it twice already and am going to it again tonight (3 days in a row) if that gives you any indication of how enjoyable a cinematic experience it is to escape the drudgery of life into.

Now that I've attended to the brussel sprouts of illuminating theme, subtext and narrative structural conceits, I'd like to indulge in the dessert buffet of jaw dropping action scenes. There are 4 set pieces so fully envisioned and forcefully realized, they would each by themselves be the best part of any other action movie, but we're treated to all 4 of them competing for our favor in 1 film! I can foresee this being the sort of thing where on bluray, each viewing will find one sequence standing out over the others, only to be usurped by another with each subsequent watch. Each scene is aesthetically different from each other: shot differently, edited differently, has a different feel and a different rhythm. This is a film that can never get boring due to the boundless creativity and variety on display. I can't wait for people to catch up to this film in a few years and finally figure out what the hell was really going on. Watch the scene with the mechanoids on the train car if you need any more proof that Snyder is not only the best action director of his generation, but possibly of all time. He manages to convey kineticism, emotion and impact without ever sacrificing geography, spatial relations or visual acuity. Sure, he loves speed ramping and high resolution slow motion, but he perfects those techniques further here and finds ways to be endlessly inventive with them all the while adding new tools to his arsenal with each film. If you don't feel a catch in your throat as your breath is taken away by the conclusion of the dragon sequence in Sucker Punch, you have no true love for the movies left in your heart.

Time will be kind to this film. Right now, there are a metric shit ton of angry, powerless, talentless losers sitting in their parents basement who have collectively decided to do everything they can to take down a seemingly genial and pleasant man because he's endeavored to make great action films and elevate the genre to high art. People like to see failure, even if it's a manufactured failure predicated on a bitter lie.