The Big Picture: You Are Wrong About Sucker Punch, Part One

[Pseudonym2]

My personal theory is that Babydoll is jumping around like the star wars kid when she's dancing and all the men are just watching her act like an idiot. The "dark and weird" line really proves that Snyder just doesn't know what he's talking about and quite frankly doesn't seem very smart.

The entire movie fails because it's not her fantasy, it's a male nerd fantasy. Why would she imagine herself in a brothel or fighting Samaria or whatever? If she were trapped in male nerd's dream kind of like Inception, Nightmare on Elm's Street, or The Cell, it might of made sense on thematic or literal level.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

They're dressed in fitishised outfits and dance for patrons. Half of the action scenes have them in freaking school girl uniforms or some shit.

Do the math.

They are dressed up in fetishized outfits but its so over the top that its not actually sexy.

Just a quick note: Having to explain what the hell the movie was trying to do means that the movie failed in explaining it.

I just hate artsy carp like what this movie tried. I didn't really get it nor do I care to. If this movie really did try to go for that big of a message well it failed. So why bother explain it?

To be clear I under got what was explain in this episode but I have no idea what Bob has planned for next week.

Having to explain to some people what the movie was trying to say does not mean that the movie fail just that it was not made for the enjoyment of those people, it was made for the enjoyment the people who did get it.

If a tree falls in the forest but know one gets the message then that message really doesn?t mean squat.

Just because you did not get the message does not mean that no one did.
Its like Funny Games a movie about 2 psychos that take a family hostage at a cabin and kill them while chastising the audience for wanting to see a movie about 2 psychos that take a family hostage at a cabin and kill them, many people did not get it, but it was not made for their enjoyment, actually the original was not made to be enjoyed at all.

The only sucker punch in that movie is when I realized that it wasn't an action movie but an artsy movie trying to give some kind of message and I paid 10 bucks to see and art movie. The ending sucked and it doesn't make sense until you realize it was all a dream. The movie ends with a fucking dream. Really?

And, yes, having to explain something afterwards means the movie failed in explaining it in the first place. The movie wasn't made for action movie lovers to enjoy it. It was made to show how stupid the genre is. If they enjoyed it then good for them but that is not the point. This is a movie that is trying to make a statement. If someone doesn't understand the statement being made, then in the end it has failed. Something has failed when it's propose has not been achieved.

Lets not think to highly of this movie. It was a 3/5 star action movie that tried to be artsy.

To be fair I hate these kind of movies that try to have so much deep meaning that they end up meaning nothing. This is not a movie that I would ever enjoy. Not because I didn't like the mean but because the meaning wasn't clear. If you enjoyed it then I am glade you saw a movie that you liked. It is like that Spec Ops game. That game is not fun to me and that is the point. So I didn't finish it. Action movie should be fun but not when it keeps yelling at me that I shouldn't be having fun.

 

[DoctorM]

MovieBob is STILL wrong about Sucker Punch.

While it appeals to his far left liberal guilt, that fact is the movie isn't that hard to 'get'. It just fails miserably at everything it is doing.

If it HAD chosen to pander to male audiences with a barrage of awe inspiring set pieces from different genres (and even shown a bit of Baby Doll's dance) it would have been a smash and made a fortune (and you should go watch "***** Slap".)

The problem is if you watch and understand the film from beginning to end, you realize the 'empowered' women fail at every task they set out to do. They never manage to help or save each other and every step of progress they make towards their goals ends up being the result of a helping hand from a male character.

So while MB may despise his voyeuristic self enough to like this movie, it fails at its message. The real message being "women even if they WANT to be strong, cannot succeed without men." And THAT'S misogynistic.

So it's not only bad superficially, it's bad below the surface.

I'll be skipping next weeks video Bob. You can feel free to skip making it too.

 

[TorchofThanatos]

"Just because you're doing it 'ironically,' doesn't mean people aren't going to jerk off to it."
- Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

LOL, we need to start posting more great Yahtzee quotes every time Bob tells us that we should liked/not liked it. I am going to go re-watch and read to find some.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I enjoyed the movie, I felt it was emotionally visceral in a way I find pretty rare. I did get the part where it was screaming its hatred of men at me, but I didn't really connect it with the misogynist undertones of geek culture. Maybe it's 'cause I'm a girl...

.___.;;

 

[Icehearted]

--snip--

Hey, Bob? This dude "loved" the movie. If that isn't evidence enough for you that the message you've inferred was either non-existent, or got lost along the way, I don't know what would be.

For a lot of reasons, I did indeed love that movie, many of which I didn't bother listing because I felt like indulging a tirade I'd felt coming on because of the content of the discussions on the escapist as of late. I didn't miss the point of the movie, but I have a feeling you may have missed the point of my post.

Not that I blame you, I did go off the rails quite a bit.

 

[pearcinator]

Comparing SuckerPunch to Starship Troopers is like comparing a bowl of shit to a big juicy steak (I know you weren't actually comparing them I am just saying that SuckerPunch is bad and Starship Troopers is amazing).

I don't care what message SuckerPunch is trying to get across, it was just a chore to watch. Every action scene was so loud, over-long and corny that all its depth was lost and I didn't care anymore. By the time the 3rd action scene came around (IIRC it was the Dragon one) I practically switched my brain off and just watched the visual effects (which weren't good tbh).

I also didn't like Dawn of the Dead, 300 or Watchmen so I guess Zack Snyder just doesn't do anything for me...to me his movies are over-long, corny and pretentious (yes, I wrote that word!). The one thing I CAN'T STAND about his movies is the amount of slow-motion scenes in them! To me, it just makes the movie longer and more boring (Michael Bay does this too) it doesn't add anything to the scene and the whole 'cool' effect is lost ever since The Matrix (and all the movies that parodied its famous slow-mo scenes).

Zack Snyder can have his moments (the first 10 minutes or so of Watchmen is perhaps one of the greatest opening scenes to any movie I have ever seen). Most of the time I am hating on the slow-mo after the initial one or two. A movie can have effective slow-motion but ONLY when it is completely necessary...

I will probably watch Man of Steel but I won't be expecting great things. However, I have been pleasantly surprised before...some of my favourite movies ever are ones where I didn't expect anything good...such as Hot Fuzz and The Prestige (watched it on TV before I knew it was a Nolan movie so I was shocked by how good it was). If Man of Steel has a lot of slow-mo like his other movies then I probably won't care about what happens and 'switch off'.

 

[Tumedus]

So I got it, at least everything indicated in today's Big Picture. And, if anything, "getting it" made me hate the movie more.

1) It is the height of hypocrisy to condemn the viewership if the movie offers nothing but what it is condemning. There was no alternative shown, no positive role models, nothing to take away from the movie but the things he is complaining about. The movie was 90 minutes of fetishized chicks doing battle.

2) It was way too heavy handed with the metaphor. I am sorry, enjoying ogling pretty women is not the same as raping and abusing them. The motivating factor in those two things is not even remotely the same.

3) Poor story telling. If the entire goal of the film was to make this single profound statement, then how do so many people not get it? Because it was a convoluted mess.

4) Not even good without the "message". The action scenes were so stylized that they lost focus. Everything was bland and boring. The temple battle I remember as being something you would have seen in hundreds of different video games and the rest of it I don't remember at all. Yeah, the familiarity was the point, but it made everything so forgettable.

5) Demographic failure. Anecdotal, I know, but of all my friends the ones most interested in the film were girls. Stupid girls, quit objectifying yourself!

6) For a film that criticizes misogyny, it is amazing how weak, recreant, and incompetent he makes all the girls in the film.

I could go on, but I am sure all these points have been made by now.

 

[Corran006]

I have to echo that this film is just plan boring and uninteresting. It blows my mind that all the action scenes have me falling asleep and wondering when they will be over. None of the girls were interesting the story was bad and acting was even worse. I am surprised I ever got though the whole film.

When I first saw the trailer I thought the film looked great, but it just endeared up being over saturated and soulless, like some kind of really bad video game.

I understand the satire that Bob was talking about but in the end it still a poorly made film.

 

[Hyperactiveman]

Yehhhna a level of fanstasy within an already existing level of fanstasy?... The brothel metaphor is fine because it explains the grim reality and keeps a twist in things, the war style, nazi killing, samurai fighting, train blowing up was just way too unnecessary and didn't help put accross the point of trying to be intimidating.

If the film wanted to be taken seriously WHICH I'm SORRY BUT IT CLEARLY DOESN'T it wouldn't have been PG13 and would have been much more gritty and realistic actually portraying the strip teases and not covering them up with something that sells strip teases as something they're not.

I did however enjoy the end to this film which wasn't so silly and I wasn't expecting a sub character to last woman standing instead of babydoll.

Suckerpunch = 4/10 "Would watch again with friends if bored enough and have the time"

 

[Alexnader]

I'm sorry, Bob, but I still won't watch this film. These guys' views on movies tend to mean more to me than yours (no offense):
snip

That first reviewer was incredibly annoying. Is it part of his schtick to act like a hyperactive kid? I can't comment on how much I agree with him because I haven't seen the movie but his claim that there's nothing below the surface and that you can't even give the film the benefit of the doubt makes an interesting contrast to Moviebob's analysis.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

People didn't get that about Sucker Punch? How? Man, I loved Sucker Punch.

 

[Shinsei-J]

I watched this movie to laugh at it and I loved it for all its subtext.
Only really getting the movie at this level, I'm curious to see what you'r going to talk about next week.

 

[demonsbanenathan]

I have one MAJOR issue with Movie Bob's piece.

He talks about the brothel as a metaphor/fantasy for what's happening in the real world, and then another metaphor/fantasy for the "striptease".

But these fantasies are obviously escapes that Babydoll has chosen ON HER OWN. She decided to make her imprisonment a Bordello, and her sexual abuse actually a heroic battle.

In this respect, it seems utterly incongruous to believe that the action scenes are merely a negative metaphor for what those men are doing; that somehow, we the (obviously male(!?)) audience are being criticized for being entertained by her fantasy. She elected to change her own perception of reality to make HER the action hero, who succeeds, and the lives of her friends have meaning even in their deaths.

This is highlighted by the fact that the real sexual abuse into fantasy heroic battle is an enormously different environment. And guess what? Your dismissal that the metaphor here is just muddled covers for the fact that there ISN'T ONE. It's just her escapist fantasy!

To me, this makes the entire film about how escaping your own reality with fantasy (yes, even the geeky kind with sexy "fetishy" outfits) is redemptive, and how turning what is horrible and ugly in the real world into something beautiful and sexy is actually a ~woman's fantasy~.

The men in the film didn't fantasize about the girls being sexy heroines, they fantasized about them being .. well something far more icky. To me, it appears the director is showing that the action scenes are a "girl's power fantasies", and really an acceptable response to a life where her sexuality is a danger and exploitable resource.

That a select group of males have made these female power fantasies into their own fantasy is, I believe, entirely beside the point. If you *honestly* disagree, please go to any Cosplay event, ever. You'll see girls dressed in school uniforms wielding samurai swords. They will not be doing it for men.

 

[I.Muir]

Gotta say most of the films double metaphor flew over my head in regards to the misogynist part
I knew it was about warping reality, in order to cover up abuse, into one where the women were empowered but I just thought the fetish outfits were merely there to tie into the anime crowd rather than being a direct criticism of them.

Can't say that the action sequences dressed as they are were not a big part of why I saw that film. I don't really seem to mind now that it's been pointed out to me though and I knew it would be darker than it appeared but up until now I just assumed it was le fem inception. Also I can never take messages along the lines of men watching strippers are truly worse than Hitler.

 

[ischmalud]

see whats wierd about that is that i thought it was a good movie without getting that final layer bob was tlaking about. completely missed the fact that this movie seems to have bombed tho, box-office wise which is kinda sad - lookin forward to the second half.

 

[ConanThe3rd]

Oh, so the movie is "You're an arsehole" for it's run time?

Glad I dodged that bullet then. Hell, I don't like the asshole mirror application in games/movies where you are not capable for your being an arsehole (for example; MGS 2, really, letting Solidus get what he needed would have saved everyone a LOT of grief) so being paid to be told I'm an ass is not what I conciser a good time.

 

[wullemaha]

Hm I don't know why Movie Bob is such a big fan of this movie...
YES it has a good idea and the core message is ok, but seriously, I don't see where there is anything not to "get"? The thing I did NOT like about it is that the movie hammers its message into your face the whole time, there's no subtlety at all. Actually, that's what makes it kind of cheap and silly.
Second problem i had: none of the main characters are likeable (at least not for me). I cannot feel immersion or drama in a movie if it is about some unsympathetic girl that has the personality of a piece of wood...

Anyhow, Movie Bob is still one of the most awesome people out there who almost every time hits the right notes and knows what he's talking about in both his movie critics and his big pictures! I'm a big fan

 

[Ninjat_126]

Lots of surprisingly relevant things you should probably read.

I loved it,I got it on the first viewing, and I went to see it because I'd heard here and there that the film had a bit more to it than first met the eye.

It's cluttered, it's overly flashy, it has fairly poor characterisation for the most part and it mocks the audience to its face.

Yeah. You should see it.

 

[Metalrocks]

i really like this movie. it was special and in my opinion, clever made. i got the dvd when it came out. extended cut version...?? dint see it besides on blueray.
anyway, i watched it with my wife in the cinema and i think she dint really get it. but i rather think she wasnt particularly fond of it because these girls can kick ass wile my wife doesnt even know how to kill a fly.

if people seriously saw it as a misogynist movie, then they really dint get it. i find it good that females can do the same things as men. especially pretty once