Sucker Punch -- A Nuanced Film

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2011)

Sucker Punch is a nuanced film -- no, really, it is. Sure, the nuance gets drowned out in the middle, and any and all subtlety gets hauled into the back seat for the most brutal of make- out sessions, as the hyper-jacked mash-up escapism takes center stage, and the film does devolve there for a bit -- but the film starts out nuanced and ends nuanced. Really it does.
I feel much of this film was lost on the average film critic, much like DMX is lost on my grandfather. It certainly wasn't made for the critics. It's rabidly apparent that Snyder made this film as a celebration piece for juvenile horn-dogs, crazy kids well-versed in handling ADHD-spiked Code Red and persistent sexual frustration. This is the ultimate geek film. I liked it. So I'm a geek then, so what?
As universal fare, I understand that Sucker Punch has major flaws, but for what it was trying to be, for who it was designed to appeal to, it really is close to flawless.
The critics who hated this film, not so much the ambivalent ones, but the critics who hated it, strike me as anachronistic, unable to tolerate the mind-numbing overkill that's beautifully painted upon the canvas of Baby Doll's psyche. I'd say, if you can't handle said overkill, then you're not a member of the target audience.
I think if I were a fifteen-year-old boy, it would have been the greatest, sexiest thing I'd ever seen -- and that's cool. Hats off to Snyder for providing today's fifteen-year-old boys with such. Just because we jaded adults perceive something as meaningless doesn't mean that the first etchings into the tabula rasa of a teen viewer can't be genuinely meaningful.
Snyder is an auteur -- sure, the story-telling is confusing, and at times flawed, but for those who put a little time in, it's there for the taking. There's a nice open interpretability to it, which allows each viewer to take away what they want to take away. Check it out a second time, and tell me you don't notice a lot more nuance and interconnectivity and sense. Though, with all that said, I do still have a lot of questions.
The elements of this film that I most enjoyed, I enjoyed to the point where I was entirely willing to give Snyder a pass on the flaws. The only real flaws that I'll concede here: a confusing story, action scenes too syrupy, and at times paper-thin characters. But in the end, this is all taking place in the head of a lobotomized girl, so it all makes perfect sense to me. Call it a cop out, call it what you will, I think it worked fine (for what it was).
Contrary to some reviews I've read, the film does differentiate between what happens in the asylum and what happens in the brothel. I didn't get that as much during my first viewing, but going in knowing what to expect, my mind was better primed to pick up on the subtle hints here and there -- and they most certainly are there.
My take on the film is now: Baby Doll was committed to the asylum, learned that she had just five days to escape before a scheduled lobotomy, and in those five days she somehow stole a lighter, a knife, the map and the key, and freed the girl we know in the brothel as Sweet Pea. How she does it all is not the two hours traffic for our stage -- how her lobotomized mind recounts it, that is what we are shown. There is no happy ending, there is only Baby Doll in "paradise" imagining the Guardian Angel further helping Sweet Pea to her freedom. There is only Baby Doll's mangled mind hoping that Sweet Pea actually made it all the way back home.
Baby Doll's "paradise" is a world where she dreams she has the power to dance incredibly, and in her dreams twice-removed, has the power to defy any and all forces opposed (gravity, time, death). Her dream-worlds are not without kinks though, as this is her mind recounting her last five days of reality, amplified tenthousandfold.
I'd give Sucker Punch an 8/10. It's not perfect, certainly, but all in all I was very impressed with Snyder's creative vision. I was surprised as to how successfully the critics stopped this one in its tracks. Sans critics, I think this film would have done at least twice as well at the box office. In the end, it's certain to garner a huge cult following -- that's another comment you can file away under "unarguable."
Apparently, there's some countless number of jaded/bitter critics out there -- not to include my Scorecard Review brethren, you guys were fair-- but this film received so many biting reviews, mean-spirited and soulless, I'd call 'em. I was entirely shocked as to how many critics truly hated this film. I cannot relate in the slightest to the critics who called this film exploitative, demeaning, or misogynistic. It's as misogynistic as Twain's Huck Finn is racist. Get over it.
Thankfully, I'm still fresh enough to this world where beauty (feminine and otherwise) and satisfactorily employed music do act as effective stand-ins for story and depth and dialogue. "Sacrilege!" Many will call for my head.