Sucker Punch (2011)

Sucker Punch was a pretty universally panned movie, and it holds a score of around 30 on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. But it was also a thematically and narratively complicated movie, and one that has its fair share of fairly passionate defenders. Because I appreciate originality in my movies - give me a flawed attempt at something unique over a decent but generic movie any day - I grabbed this film on Blu-Ray during a recent Amazon.com sale. I had read a fair amount of criticism and defense before even watching it, and went in fully aware of the plot, the narrative structure, and the different interpretations of the film's authorial intent. I could easily put links here to all kinds of reviews and essays on the pros and cons of Sucker Punch, but it's already after two in the morning so instead I'll do my best to cut to the chase.

First of all, let me quickly talk about the main source of backlash and controversy to this film, which I realize wasn't exactly the biggest title to come out in 2011 and which many of you have probably barely even heard of. Essentially, the movie uses over-the-top action scenes to show a quintet of heroines in skimpy and slightly fetishistic clothing, attempting to satire the tendencies of so many movies, video games, and TV shows to pass off scantily clad butt-kicking women as "self-empowered action heroes" when of course their primary purpose is to serve as fan service for horny geeky guys. I trust I don't need to provide any visual evidence for anyone out there to recognize that this is true. The biggest debate over this movie seems to be whether or not its inclusion of said flesh-baring action ladies is tantamount to having your cake and eating it too. After all, the movie's trailers and poster art waste no time trying to lure in male viewers with pleasant female figures, so how is it really taking a stand or making a statement against other movies that do the same thing?

I guess this is the trouble with attempting satire, in a nutshell; if you botch the delivery on a message that you meant to be ironic or sarcastic, no one will know you were being ironic or sarcastic. Whether or not this movie tried to ridicule tropes like sexy action heroines in skimpy outfits, plenty of people perceived that it was simply a movie interested in showing off its sexy action heroines in skimpy outfits.  And when the bulk of the audience misunderstands a key message that the movie is trying to convey, it often means that the movie failed at least a little bit on the execution front.

Personally, I didn't think Sucker Punch was either a good example or a good satire of fetish fuel; the movie was rated PG-13 and was also void of all kinds of overt sexual imagery found both ironically and seriously in all kinds of other movies. Either way, I guess I don't really care; I still would have had the same compliments and criticisms for the movie as a whole. Cutting to the chase here, I thought that narratively the movie was interesting but a bit sloppy. There are three layers of nested reality in the film. At the base level is a mental institution, in which a girl about to be lobotomized imagines herself in a live-in burlesque strip club of sorts. Whenever she begins a dance routine, we dive one level further down into a variety of extremely unrealistic fantasy sequences where the girls take on orcs and dragons or disarm bombs on steampunk trains. These sequences were visually stunning, but they were also the parts of the movie that dragged the most and accomplished the least, both plot-wise and thematically. At any rate, you could read into these ass-kicking fantasy segments as a metaphor for female empowerment through seductive dancing, and you could read into the burlesque club as a metaphor for the imprisonment felt by the girls in the mental institution, but if you do both of these things you start to notice mixed messages. Are the girls empowered, or are they trapped? And by sexually objectifying themselves, are they surrendering power, or are they manipulatively taking control of their situation? And although there are a couple key moments during the film's climax that kind of come out of the blue and genuinely surprised me, I'm still not convinced where the titular "sucker punch" comes into play. I've read multiple theories, but I don't find myself particularly swayed toward any of them specifically.

All in all, I'm glad I watched this movie. It was interesting and visually stunning, even if it was narratively messy and occasionally boring. And it opens itself up - willingly or not - to debates about feminism and perspective in the mainstream media. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd at least recommend you look into it a little for yourself; if you have seen it, please, let me know what you thought. See you next time.