DVD REVIEW: Sucker Punch

The trailer for this promised so much. Hot girls in skimpy costumes kicking all kinds of arse. I could get on board with that; a simple, escape flick with added T‘n’A. But that’s not what I got.

That’s not what anyone got.

Instead, we have a convoluted mess of a plot, where the action scenes are dull and by the end you don’t know what just happened. The story such as it is, involves Babydoll getting sent to an asylum (maybe) by her abusive stepfather after wrongly being accused of killing her sister, and in five days she will be lobotomised so as she doesn’t tell anyone the truth. So, to counter the horrible reality of being in an asylum, where they are abused by the misogynistic male staff, Babydoll imagines that she’s actually in a brothel, where they are sold to lecherous men, and abused by the misogynistic male staff. So, imagining a shitty situation to replace the shitty situation you’re currently in. Great, makes no sense. And then when she’s trying to steal the items she needs to escape, she imagines that she’s in various different worlds, when in the brothel reality she’s dancing for the bosses, and in the actual reality (or maybe not) she’s using her imagination to think that she’s dancing when she’s really being abused. Still with me? Good.

At least I think that’s what was happening. The film never clearly tells you, not that I expect any film to explicitly state it’s intention, but this one is just so deliberately obtuse and vague that it makes you wonder if the writer knew what the actual point of his movie was. For example, I like to think Inception has a definite interpretation, even if we never know for sure what it is, it’s seems as though Chris Nolan does have a definitive answer for the whole movie. Sucker Punch just seems to throw a whole bunch of things together with no real coherence and it seems as though they thought it would inspire debate as to what was real and what wasn’t (a la Inception) but come the credits, you’re still no surer of what the writer’s end game was.

Still, at least there was some great action, right? Well, sort of. While I liked the idea of the action being a figment of Babydoll’s mind, by the time we actually to some, it was so bogged down in plot mechanics that I didn’t care. And it’s not as though the plot was difficult; it basically came down to steal 5 things then escape, but it took about 5 minutes for this to be explained to Babydoll. However, the WW2 trenches, with (get this) steam powered clockwork Nazi zombies was, while mental, a very good action sequence, as was the fight on the train, and the one with the dragon. But when these scenes are all part of someone’s imagination, they may look cool, but there are no real stakes. You never think anyone is in danger, despite what is happening in the fantasy is also happening (in a more mundane way) in the real/brothel world; for example, Rocket being stabbed to save her sister, is mirrored in the fantasy as her being blown up after saving her sister by activating her jet pack (seriously). I will say however, that these sequences looked amazing. Visually spectacular, but emotionally hollow. Which sums up most of Zack Snyder’s work really, except this time it didn’t work. Sorry Zack.

(Seriously, he made this boring)

So, overall Sucker Punch is a bit of a mess really. It confuses intrigue with vagueness, and comes of stupid when it trying oh so hard to be clever. And there’s a female empowerment subtext running throughout, which never really convinces and only seems there as some sort of justification for dressing its heroines the way it does, by making them male fantasies but at the same time fighting the power/male objectification as it were.

And I haven’t even mentioned that perhaps Babydoll isn’t actually the protagonist, which throws a whole new set of problems into the mix.

Who’d of thought you could make a movie with hot girls wearing next to nothing fighting monsters so boring?

1 star.

FLASHBACK MOVIE REVIEW: Batman and Robin

I have three words that sum up this ungodly experience and which exemplify just how far this once mighty franchise has fallen since the heady days of 1989’s Batman, and those three words are: Bat Credit Card.

Let me say that again just to let it sink in: A Bat Credit Card.

About halfway through the movie Batman and Robin get into a bidding war (they’re at a charity event, don’t ask) over Poison Ivy. They outbid each other until Batman bids a huge amount and whips out his Batman Credit Card from his utility belt, all but looking to the camera saying “Don’t leave home without it.”

I felt like throwing up.

By the way, the expiry date on said credit card is Forever. Which aside from making no sense (so it’s always expired?) is just downright retarded and insulting to the audience. Which is how I would sum up the entire damn movie.

It’s not even the garish set design or the Bat-nipples that upset me most, although they are completely hideous. Seriously Gotham is constantly bathed in neon light, and there are massive Adonis-like statues all over the place. And don’t get me started on the structure of the city, which literally makes no sense. Gotham is meant to be dark and gothic as it was in the first two Batman films, not a multi-coloured MC Escher inspired gay bar.

And the Batsuit, a suit supposed to be designed for stealth and to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, is, in the final act, made sort of metallic in nature. You could practically see your face in it. The there’s the Batmobile. Oh lord, the Batmobile. It resembles a ribbed fluorescent condom on wheels.

The whole thing is so camp it makes the 60’s Batman with its “POW! BIFF! SHONK” antics seem almost Kubrickian.

But I can almost forgive these things, if the movie itself were any good. But it’s really not. There is no subtlety in the whole thing, everything happens in big loud moments with absolutely no attempt to make anything resemble actual dialogue. Arnie’s Mr Freeze doesn’t say anything in the movie that isn’t a terrible ice/cold/snow/winter pun and it’s easily the worst performance of his not exactly glittering career, leading us to believe that maybe his best performances are the ones where he doesn’t say much (see: The Terminator). George Clooney makes a mess of both Wayne and Bats. His Wayne is a perma-smirking (although that could just be Clooney’s face) asshole, and his Bats (like Freeze) just speaks in terrible puns for the most part. Chris O’Donnell is just as awful as he was in Batman Forever, and a plot strand about him leaving Batman to be his own hero is dropped as quickly as it starts rendering him pointless. Alicia Silverstone’s apparently English (though you wouldn’t know it) niece of Alfred’s is just there to eventually don a Bat suit of her own come the end, which despite no training in the Bat-gadgets can use them all really well. Seriously, no-one questions this. In fact, only Uma Thurman comes out of this with any dignity. Her Poison Ivy is actually quite fun and works in the campy context of the movie.
The action, if you can call it that, is terrible and consists mostly of Batman and Robin fighting Freeze’s goons on ice. Seriously, when is ice skating ever exciting? All other action is either Batman punching Freeze or Bane (oh, poor Bane) in the face, with both of these characters being so huge it doesn’t look as if they actually feel any punches at all. Freeze in particular doesn’t look like he can move at all in his ice suit much less fight.

In fact, there is nothing in the movie that isn’t completely over the top; if there’s a wall, someone will smash through it; if there’s an opportunity for a pun, this movie will not just take it but ram it down your throat; if there’s a chance to make it even more stupid, camp and dumb beyond belief you’d better believe they’re going to produce a fucking Bat Credit Card.

All in all, it’s much more of a toy advert than a movie and the decision to make it a more family friendly movie is a terrible one. I doubt any children were playing with action figures from this movie, or if they were they would have made a better movie than this. I’d have rather watched a movie about Alfred fighting his illness than watch this.

However this abomination did cause WB to not make any more Bat movies with Joel Schumacher and lead into Batman Begins so maybe we can be thankful for that.

0 stars.