No, YOU didn’t write a new entry in this series for over a year! Okay, that makes no sense. To make up for the procrastination that I’ve warned you about for years … CONTEST! Three movies leaving Netflix soon, you pick one for me to watch and write about in the future. I’m totally gonna do it at some point, promise! You may vote in the comments below, even if you don’t read anything else here.
Ready Player One: From what I’ve heard of the book/movie, I sense the younger version of me would’ve been all over this. I even instantly got what the title refers to. Crammed with crowd-pleasing bits of nostalgia, and directed by a master of rousing cinematic moments (“We gotta bring the T-Rex back one more time”).
The Disaster Artist: I’ve only heard about the legendarily bad movie this film is centered on. Mostly from comments here and back at the old AV Club. Features the classic James/Seth duo plus what now looks like the superior Franco brother, and not just because he married Alison Brie. Who’s also in this.
Bullet Train: I was shocked to discover that this movie made almost a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide. I didn’t even remember it getting a theatrical release. I assumed it was one of those big-budget movies with huge stars that Netflix occasionally pulls out of its ass. I am interested in seeing this just for one particular person, who will appear in my next entry.
I check various websites to see what movies are leaving Netflix. One time (two whole years ago!), I stumbled onto the Rotten Tomatoes version, which included their aggregate critic scores. I passed on both Moneyball (94% positive) and The Shawshank Redemption (91%), because I’d already read and enjoyed the books they were based on. Stephen King’s novella is especially good. Thought about both Greta Gerwig/Saoirse Ronan collabs, Ladybird (99%) and Little Women (95%), but let them slip away. I did manage to see Barbie in a theater. Can I just take everyone’s word that Ben Affleck has become one of our better film directors, without having to watch The Town (92%)? I can? Cool. I finally decided on Sucker Punch (22% critics, 47% audience). I wanted to see what Zack Snyder did with his original ideas. Find out if this mix of psychology and fantasy and action would work … this movie has leggy babes in short skirts. That’s it, that’s why I picked it. Movie spoilers below.
Sucker Punch centers on a young woman named Babydoll, who opens the film undergoing a litany of misery. Her evil stepfather kills her mother and threatens her little sister, who Babydoll accidentally shoots while trying to protect her. Then, he commits her to an asylum and signs her up for a lobotomy, so he can steal her inheritance. Just a whole bunch of reasons why they choose the bear. Babydoll escapes into a fantasy world, complete with the trope of people at the asylum playing characters in her fantasy. That her fantasy world is a brothel where her fellow patients are scantily-clad, exotic-dancing sex slaves shows how troubled Babydoll is. And it shows Zack Snyder clearly trying to have it both ways. “These women are being sexually exploited, but we’re going to show how strong and empowered they can be! While wearing these tight, tiny outfits.” Not that I can criticize him much. It’s the main reason I chose this movie.
When Babydoll is asked to give a dance audition, or else, this movie goes down to another level of fantasy. Like a less demanding, less rewarding Inception. She meets The Wise Man (yes, that’s his name in the credits), who gives her weapons and a quest to gather items so she can escape and this whole movie is a video game btw. But we do get to the film’s main draw: the action scenes. Three samurai-esque giants (monsters? robots? I want to say golems?) face Babydoll from across a courtyard. One charges, and we watch with trepidation as the blade of his huge curved sword scrapes the ground and shoots sparks. Babydoll was also watching this, because she and we are surprised when it punts her through a temple to crash on the floor. She barely recovers while the giant, who is amazingly nimble for its size, slashes at her. Babydoll finally gains command of her latent fighting skills in time to defeat her foe. The next giant heaves a monstrous Gatling gun, but Babydoll stylishly dodges, charges, climbs, and blasts it in the face. The third one doesn’t stand a chance against her sweeping sword strike. The whole scene is grimly-shot ridiculousness. I liked it.
Babydoll recruits her fellow inmates/prostitutes Amber, Blondie, Rocket and Sweet Pea for her escape plan. This is not the type of movie where the heroes can have ordinary names. While Babydoll entrances everyone with the exotic dancing that she’s naturally amazing at, her crew sets out to steal a map of the asylum. Cut to Babydoll and her crew strolling through a war zone while grizzled vets and baby-faced newbies gape at them, wearing revealing outfits with skirts so short, I was immediately reminded of the girls from the gif above. This scene starts out over-the-top, then escalates. The girls have to steal an enemy map by battling through … steampunk Nazi zombies. Well, the airships and trench warfare set this scene during WWI, so these German soldiers weren’t Nazis. Yet. The girls impressively slay the evil monsters that would become really evil monsters with whirring blades and blazing guns. In trenches under the surface, in high skies surrounded by exploding aircraft, defying the laws of physics all the while. Even if you watch this scene with an understandable “Oh come on!” attitude, I suspect this will be the part of the movie you most enjoy.
As badass as the woman warriors are, things start to unravel in the “real” world of the brothel. The mobster who owns the joint sniffs out the plan and reacts with swift vengeance. Everything is falling apart in the asylum as well, when Babydoll desperately tries to put her plan in motion. The movie’s ending left me dissatisfied at first, but thinking back, I accept it. The audience naturally wants all five women to escape. With the quick death of three of them, we switch our hopes to seeing Babydoll escape. She’s the one we’ve been following since the beginning. But the movie foreshadows early on that a major sacrifice will be required. Babydoll realizes she has no chance, so she sacrifices herself so Sweet Pea can get out. It’s heartbreaking to see the heroine we were rooting for with an unsettling blank stare after her lobotomy. But Sweet Pea surely had her own story, that would have made us want to root for her. Still, I don’t think this movie quite worked overall. It was just too disjointed, and had ambitions that it couldn’t hope to fulfill. Except for the action scenes, just watch those on YouTube if you think you might like them.
Thoughts:
- The opening scene, where the evil stepfather destroys Babydoll’s entire life, plays like a creepy, dark fairytale. But one of the reasons I don’t like Sucker Punch much is, it has scenes like this that remind me of things I liked, and ends up looking worse by comparison. Seeing the stepfather menacingly approach a defenseless girl’s bedroom door, and watching Babydoll scramble for a gun to stop him, reminds me of a more impressive bit of filmmaking by David Fincher, from some rock band’s music video.
- On that note, there’s an action scene set on a train, where the girls fight their way through an enemy army. But their opponents are literally faceless robots and don’t have much personality. Contrast that with the train fight scene from Snowpiercer, which was more memorable even before the battle starts. What was up with that fish-gutting? And as for side-scrolling fight scenes shot in tight corridors, well, Sucker Punch has nothing on Oldboy’s hammer fight.
- I will give credit to an action scene I enjoyed, that pleasantly reminded me of past entertainment. Now, if I’d seen the Lord of the Rings movies, I might look down on Sucker Punch trying an Orc siege. But I didn’t. The girls’ quest for fire crystals that led them to a dragon battle reminded me of two things. One, that classic Marines commercial where a recruit sword-fought a lava monster, defeated him, then transformed into an impeccably-dressed soldier saluting with his sword. My U.S. Marine dad passed down his sword to my Marine older brother, and both looked fantastic in pics of them in dress uniform. Two, one of my favorite gamebooks had your hero attack a fire-breathing dragon, and when you defeat him, you totally loot the corpse for better gear.
- You may have noticed I didn’t talk much about the actors. I will point out my two favorite performances. Oscar Isaac played a dual villain role, both name Blue Jones. He was suitably charismatic and dangerous as the slick mobster. But it was his role as the corrupt orderly who arranged things like Babydoll’s lobotomy that showed true, banal evil. Blue knew that the asylum was a place where people put their “problems” out of sight and mind, and thus he could get away with a great deal. It was a chilling performance, and showed why Oscar Isaac seems to be in all the things.
- When Jena Malone’s Rocket is given the mission of fighting the steampunk Nazis, she lets loose a dazzling, wolfish grin. Rocket is so going to enjoy this battle, and we are going to love watching her. Later, in one of the asylum scenes, Rocket is trying to steal a kitchen knife for the escape plan. The cook catches her and, in the ensuing scuffle, tries to rape her. Babydoll rescues her and as Rocket walks away, asks if she’s okay. We see Rocket try to flash the same grin to show she’s fine, but it falters in heartbreaking fashion. Jena Malone should be in more things.
- The movie’s plot hinges on Babydoll’s dancing being so mesmerizing, that people can only stop and stare, giving the other girls the chance to grab what they need. But we aren’t shown any of her dancing. Not even a little bit. It’s frustrating, but I think it’s the right call. Otherwise, we’d get what Classic AV Club dubbed “The Brady Nod”, where we see a mediocre bit of on-screen entertainment, and wonder why everyone is reacting like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Next up is … Oh, this is something completely different than what I’ve written up before. As you can probably guess from my long delay, I wasn’t enthusiastic about writing this entry. But I have a lot to say about this next one, and you may see it soon.
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