(Get that Excedrin ready…)
CAST: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Jaime Chung, Jena Malone, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn.
DIRECTOR: Zack Snyder
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some eye candy overload - literally and figuratively - straight ahead…
In our last review for the wonderful POETRY (review # 300), I kept both the plot breakdown and analysis deliberately short. This was because I didn’t want to SPOIL the film for you folks, and therefore kept a lot of the movie’s cards close to my chest. In our next review, the intriguing but ultimately misguided SUCKER PUNCH, I will do the same. Not because I want to preserve the plot’s integrity to y’all. But because I have no fucking clue what this movie is about. In other words, I’m not holding any cards close to my chest because I can’t even understand the goddamn things.
There. I said it. Shoot me. Ask my friend who looks like Nia Vardalos. I went to see SUCKER PUNCH with “Nia” and at one point I actually got up and left the theatre because my brain couldn’t handle any more of the nonsensical imagery being thrown my way. There’s only so much my tiny little intellect can parse before it suddenly revolts and demands another infusion of Sour Patch Kids and Cherry Coke. Suffice it to say, I lost even more of the plot by ducking out of the theater briefly.
Trying to tell you what SUCKER PUNCH is about is kind of like trying to break down the rationale behind producing a remake of ARTHUR. In other words: Huh? But, given that most of you have been on this crazy ride as long as I have, I feel I owe you an effort. So… here we go, folks…
Our story opens with provocatively-named teenager Baby Doll (Emily Browning) fighting off yet another advance from her lecherous stepfather. Only this time, Baby Doll has had enough and pulls a gun on the sleazoid. Except she’s a lousy shot, because she ends up putting a bullet in the head of her sister. No worries, though, because not long after that, she gets it right and plugs a hold in Scummy StepDad’s noggin. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
Anyway, the Universe doesn’t really condone people shooting other people (especially family), even if they are as hot as Baby Doll. So it’s off to some insane asylum for our girl. Only the asylum she winds up in turns out to be the kind that you read about in the old Cryptkeeper comic books. The place looks like a cross between the Munsters’ family abode and a University of Washington campus building: ugly gothic meets pretty gothic. More ugly, though...
There, Baby Doll meets four other sluts, er, girls: (1) Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), which is some form of Irony because she is about as sweet as rancid pickle juice; (2) Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), which is yet another form of irony because her hair is about as blonde as tar; (3) Amber (Jaime Chung), token Asian chick; and (4) Rocket (Jena Malone), Sweet Pea’s older sister who is named as such because… well, your guess is as good as mine.
At any rate, these girls/women are Baby Doll’s companion in her new hellhole, er, home. Giving her an unusually warm welcome is Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), who is some sort of dance instructor/psychologist/Bond Girl wannabe. Apparently, Dr. Vera is training our little tramps, er, girls to dance in such a way that they’ll get, I guess, adopted by some mysterious dude called the High Roller who periodically comes to the asylum to watch the girls… dance. And you people think I’m a pervert.
While Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie, and Amber are madly doing the Flashdance thang in anticipation of Mr. Roller’s visit, Baby Doll has been getting the itch to escape. She somehow meets a wise man named, uh, Wiseman (Scott Glenn) who gives her some clues on how to do that. Basically, he tells Baby Doll she needs to get: (1) a key, (2) a map, (3) a knife, and a (4) well… I’m not sure. I guess I made another Sour Patch Kids run at a crucial scene.
Whatever. The point is this pretty much gets Baby Doll going, and she convinces her other hos, er, girls that they need to do such kick-ass dance numbers so that they can lull the men of the asylum into a trance. Then they can systematically steal the items that Wiseman (really, that’s what they call him) said they need. Cue the opening strains of “What A Feeling…”
Will Baby Doll and The Whores, Er, Girls succeed? Or will the guards of the asylums shut their shit down? Who is this mysterious High Roller? And what does he want? What secret is waiting inside the asylum? And will it let the hussies, er, girls escape just like that? And the most important question of all: what the fuck is up with all that eyeliner?
There are raccoons organizing a protest as I write this.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: If there ever was a film that epitomized the phrase “style-over-substance” it’s SUCKER PUNCH. That’s not to say, however, that it succeeds in pulling this move off, though. The only reason SUCKER PUNCH doesn’t rate any lower than average is because of some strong acting from its cast, particularly the women.
The visuals are quite striking, but after awhile they get redundant and distracting. The film’s characters are, true to their graphic novel origins, not much more than cartoon cutouts. Fortunately, the cast of actresses playing these ciphers are compelling enough to make these thinly-written roles worth paying attention to. Emily Browning and Abbie Cornish are the standouts from the younger players, while Carla Gugino, Scott Glenn, and Jon Hamm are the notable ones from the older set.
The plot of the film is a convoluted mess, and is just an excuse to launch the girls into a series of outlandish and loud setpieces involving combat with overgrown Samurais and flying dragons, just for starters. Needless to say, suspension of disbelief is a requirement for getting through SUCKER PUNCH without experiencing a migraine. I only partially succeeded in avoiding one.
In the end, how much you enjoy this movie is directly proportionate to how much you demand realism in your films. If believability is a “non-negotiable” for you, then you’re better off going to see something else…
