Dog Hours
Here, in order of preference, are my favorite Sucker Punch judgments. Along with a portion of one of the two or three semi-favorable reviews currently out there, written by Salon‘s Andrew O’Hehir, and which I respect.
“It might be better to say that all levels of the story in Sucker Punch are self-evidently ludicrous,” O’Hehir’s final paragraph reads, “and that the point of the movie is the vertiginous thrill ride that takes us through them. If you want to understand Snyder’s central narrative gambit, it’s right there in the title. He gives us what we want (or what we think we want, or what he thinks we think we want): Absurdly fetishized women in teeny little skirts, gloriously repetitious fight sequences loaded with plot coupons, pseudo-feminist fantasies of escape and revenge. Then he yanks it all back and stabs us through the eyeball.”
Some Came Running‘s Glenn Kenny: “You know, I didn’t exactly have high hopes for Sucker Punch, but I wasn’t expecting it to EAT MY SOUL. Good lord, it is ghastly!”
Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips: “Director/co-writer/co-producer Zack Snyder must have known in preproduction that his greasy collection of near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale wasn’t going to satisfy anyone but himself. Well, himself, plus ardent fans of Japanese-schoolgirl manga comics. ‘Close your eyes. Open your mind. You will be unprepared,’ is the movie’s ad slogan. Indeed. You will be unprepared for a film packing this much confusing crud into a little less than two hours of solitary confinement, which feels more like dog hours, i.e., 14.”
Village Voice‘s Nick Pinkerton: “[Snyder's] mash-up set pieces blend into so-awesome-they’re-awful slo-mo monotony, and the awful sisterhood stuff in between makes you anticipate the action as though waiting for the bus.”
Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Stephen Rea: “A barrage of green-screen effects, comic-book portentousness [and] brain-dead delirium, Sucker Punch is hands-down the most nightmarishly awful film of the year.”
Entertainment Weekly‘s Lisa Schwarzbaum: “The music screeches, the actors vamp, the knives and weapons and bombs and fireballs fly around the screen. Meanwhile, the well-prepared moviegoer slips into her or his own private fantasy of a world in which movie effects are themselves locked away in an institution for the criminally insane until such time as those effects are really, truly necessary for the story.”
God, I can’t do this any more…it’s too depressing. I have to leave it.
New York Press Armond White: Eerily reminiscent of Jacque Demy’s “Umbrellas of Cherbourg”…
Such a silly quote by Kenny.
‘Cuz we know damn well you don’t actually have a soul!
ao scott’s whole review isn’t his best but the opening graph is fantastic.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/movies/sucker-punch-from-zack-snyder-review.html?ref=movies
What I wouldn’t give to read one actual tweedy up-market critic– not a Geek brigade guy or show-off blogger– like a Wilmington or Maltin or Turan or AO Scott type critic, to just simply, without fanfare and in the midst of otherwise sober criticism, just admit it and say it flat-out
“…but Vanessa Hudgens gave me a boner.”
Figured this would be the kind of movie Roeper would at least enjoy. Nope, no cigar.
This thing is getting ANNIHILATED over at RT with a 20% overall rating. Snyder is usually got for a “barely-fresh” 60% or so.
usually *good, that is…
And a hungry nation cries out, “Where is Paul Verhoeven when we need him most?”
FWIW, my own rave-with-reservations:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/2962-Sucker-Punch
I maintain that the overall reviews wouldn’t be QUITE as toxic if the old-guard wasn’t predisposed to hate anything once a clear gamer/anime influence shows up. Anyone who pans this but even just TOLERATED Moulin Rouge needs to do some soul-searching.
Every movie that Bob reviews on this website is a “rave with reservations” including Red Riding Hood and Tron: Legacy.
And yet armies of fanboy dorks (many from right here) are piling into the theaters as we speak and handing over their opening day cash.
You know, to see if it’s really as bad as everyone says, and because hey, it might be so bad it’s good. Yeah, that’s why.
Is that Abbie Cornish or Armie Hammer?
So actionlover, they should just trust others, rather than making their own opinion?
So you see EVERY SINGLE movie that comes out because, hey, why take somebody else’s word?
Wish you had that 10 bucks back for “Ecks vs. Sever”?
I mean, I know I’m sodomizing a dead horse, but with all the great movies out there that go unseen, I’m STILL completely flummoxed by people who say “Yeah, I know it’s gonna suck balls, but I’m gonna pay money to see it opening weekend anyway, ’cause, what the heck…”
“So you see EVERY SINGLE movie that comes out because, hey, why take somebody else’s word?”
I see movies that look interesting to me, bad reviews or not. This is how normal people think
Sucker Punch is a movie that doesn’t need an audience–just a box of tissues and some lotion.–Walter Chaw of FILM FREAK CENTRAL
Also like this Glenn Kenny observation:
” Snyder is so ham-handed and fake profound he makes Lars von Trier look like Harold Lloyd. ”
While I do find portions of The Watchmen surprisingly, er, watchable, I do wonder what happened to the guy who made such a clever and startling debut with Dawn of the Dead. I actually prefer it to Romero–the horror!
And then there’s Betsy Sharkey’s rave:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-sucker-punch-20110325,0,7702288.story
I almost feel bad for an ‘actress’ like Hudgens. Though lack of talent is no barrier to success in Hollywood, as a product of the closed system of Disney/Nickelodeon tween fare, her window of opportunity is quite small. It’s a fickle audience, and frankly Hudgen’s best talents seem to be her ability to photograph herself nude and have those photos leaked, and all you need is an internet connection for that, no movie ticket required. She’ll either end up in Melissa Joan Hart territory, a bloated housefrau raising her puppies, or turning tricks for a Hollywood escort service.
As for Snyder, every film since the brilliant Dawn of the Dead has been progressively worse. Too bad, the guy had something…it’s gotta be the drugs. I’ll catch it on cable.
LicentuousMaximus wrote:
She’ll either end up in Melissa Joan Hart territory, a bloated housefrau raising her puppies, or turning tricks for a Hollywood escort service.
Guessing Vanessa Hudgens will wind up playing a plucky intern/law student on a Shonda RImes Disney/ABC series.
As long as we’re citing good lines, there was Patton Oswalt’s tweet, which seems as neat a distillation of the film as any: “Should I go see SUCKER PUNCH or jerk off to Sailor Moon while reading Mein Kampf and save $15?”
Still, hard to imagine it’s really any worse than Rango, which is just as self-referential, just as overblown, just as hiply smug, and just as willing to trash the entire history of the movies for cheap laughs, but has lizards instead of tits.
As long as we’re citing good lines, there was Patton Oswalt’s tweet, which seems as neat a distillation of the film as any: “Should I go see SUCKER PUNCH or jerk off to Sailor Moon while reading Mein Kampf and save $15?”
Still, hard to imagine it’s really any worse than Rango, which is just as self-referential, just as overblown, just as hiply smug, and just as willing to trash the entire history of the movies for cheap laughs, but has lizards instead of tits.
The raves over at AICN don’t surprise anyone.
Those are ridiculous reasons for not liking Rango
Well the movie is a big fuck you to people who appreciate at least a modicum of narratve logic in their movies. Nothing in it makes any sense. And doesn’t even bother to try which I don’t know if I should applaud as being punk rock or just someone whose incapable of telling a story. This Zack Snyder guy made the Dawn of the Dead remake. A movie that succeeds in building tension and character depth, where is that guy, seriously what happened to him?
What I have learned from the “Sucker Punch” discussion at HE: I will now read everything posted by le corbeau and look for everything said by Patton Oswalt.
Yet not a single one is mentioning how good Abbie Cornish (who has no business in this movie after Bright Star) and Jena Malone are in their roles — and they are. Cornish, especially, gives the movie a depth it doesn’t have. There’s no denying how good she is in the film’s final third.