{"id":354862,"date":"2011-03-31T21:28:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T21:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/03\/31\/sucker-punch-takes-hollywoods-love-of-moronic-sexualised-violence-to-a-new-low\/"},"modified":"2011-03-31T21:28:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T21:28:25","slug":"sucker-punch-takes-hollywoods-love-of-moronic-sexualised-violence-to-a-new-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/03\/31\/sucker-punch-takes-hollywoods-love-of-moronic-sexualised-violence-to-a-new-low\/","title":{"rendered":"Sucker Punch takes Hollywood’s love of moronic, sexualised violence to a new low"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

\nBy
\nChris Tookey<\/a>
Last updated at 10:28 PM on 31st March 2011<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Verdict:<\/span> Soul-suckingly putrid<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>
\nRating: \"1<\/strong><\/p>\n

The publicity for Sucker Punch promises that \u2018You will be unprepared\u2019 and that at least is true.<\/p>\n

I was unprepared for a film so pretentious, humourless yet laughable that it seems to have been made for 15-year-old boys by a sad middle-aged man whose only experience of life is from violent comics, shoot-\u2019em-up video games and online pornography.<\/p>\n

\n\"Chris<\/p>\n

Chris Tookey says he was unprepared for a film so pretentious, humourless yet laughable that it seems to have been made for 15-year-old boys by a middle-aged man\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Even at a time of year after the Oscars when Hollywood studios traditionally bring out their dead \u2014 movies that will neither conquer the box office nor win awards \u2014 Sucker Punch dives to a new low in sleazy, distasteful film-making.<\/p>\n

It resembles Inception in one sense: it takes place on three levels of reality. In the first, a blank-faced girl called Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is raped by her paedophile stepfather (Gerald Plunkett), blamed for the murder of her little sister and committed to an abusive mental institution.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the asylum, populated by transparently sane, alluring females aged between 17 and 25, Baby Doll is treated by a Polish psychotherapist in Dusty Springfield\u2019s old eye make-up and Cher\u2019s cast-off clothing (Carla Gugino, dreadful), brutalised by a sex-crazed orderly (Oscar Isaac, worse) and lobotomised by a surprised-looking Jon Hamm (inexplicable).<\/p>\n

To cope with her seemingly redundant lobotomy, Baby Doll enters parallel reality 2, where she imagines herself and the other inmates \u2014 the way all victims of sexual and medical abuse do \u2014 as scantily-clad erotic dancers, choreographed by Ms Gugino in a seedy nightclub run by Mr Isaac. This comes across as a tackier version of Burlesque. No, really.<\/p>\n

\n\"Girl<\/p>\n

Girl power? Emily Browning stars as ‘Babydoll’ in the fantasy action film<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We never get to see any dancing \u2014 probably because the film-makers want a 12A certificate, but ostensibly because each time Baby Doll starts to move, she and the other girls are transported for no obvious reason into parallel reality 3.<\/p>\n

Here they are briefed by a Charlie\u2019s Angels-type patriarch (Scott Glenn, doing a visibly bored impression of the late David Carradine) and given homespun homilies such as: \u2018Don\u2019t write a check with your mouth you can\u2019t cash with your ass.\u2019 Mr Glenn drops them into various surreal landscapes, which look like the imaginings of a 14-year-old boy with attention deficit syndrome, where these wannabe Lara Crofts kick the butts of giant Samurai warriors, disfigured Nazi zombies and some exceptionally dreary killer robots.<\/p>\n

There is no tension about any of these battles, as the girls are pretty much invincible and the villains are unmotivated killing machines.<\/p>\n

Still, here at last is conclusive proof that it is possible to make a noisy film packed with scantily-clad girls blowing things up, and still bore an audience. I\u2019m happy to defend good comic-strip movies, like Spiderman\u2009\u20092, Men In Black and the first 75 minutes of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. I\u2019m also a fan of cinematic expressionism when \u2014 as in Fight Club, Shutter Island or Black Swan \u2014 it has something to express.<\/p>\n

But not only do director Zack Snyder and his co-writer Steve Shibuya have nothing to say, the way they say it makes the excesses of The Last Airbender, Showgirls and Transformers look tasteful.<\/p>\n

\n\"Influences:<\/p>\n

Influences: Tookey says Sucker Punch resembles Inception in the sense that it takes place on three levels of reality<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This is an orgy of aggressive vacuity. These guys are not only talentless and unimaginative, they\u2019re proud of it. They probably think they\u2019re being post-modernist.<\/p>\n

The BBFC\u2019s 12A certificate is further discredited by this brazenly masturbatory fantasy, and one can only hope its sleazy subtext is unclear to any children who are mistakenly made to endure it. By putting his actresses in high heels, short skirts, bustiers and fishnet tights, Snyder\u2019s voyeuristic direction undermines his pretence of female-empowerment.<\/p>\n

The ending is particularly pathetic. I am not giving away anything important by saying the protagonist changes abruptly to an unimportant subsidiary character, the principal villain goes unpunished, and the heroine ends up even more characterless than she is in the rest of the movie.<\/p>\n

Snyder proved conclusively in Watchmen and Legends Of The Guardians: The Owls Of\u00a0 Ga-Hoole that he hasn\u2019t a clue about coherent storytelling.<\/p>\n

Here, he has amazingly been allowed to squander $85 million, plus publicity costs, on a movie that will forever exemplify early 21st-century cinema at its mindless, excessive, hypocritical worst.<\/p>\n

The most astonishing aspect is that Warner Brothers ever greenlit this monstrous turkey, undoubtedly one of the most tacky and moronic ever perpetrated. Who\u2019s in charge of commissioning movies there these days? Charlie Sheen?<\/p>\n

\n\"Action<\/p>\n

Action role: Vanessa Hudgens arrives at the Los Angeles Sucker Punch premiere, in which she plays one of Baby Doll’s fantasy characters<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The rest is here:
\nSucker Punch takes Hollywood’s love of moronic, sexualised violence to a new low<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Tookey Last updated at 10:28 PM on 31st March 2011 \u00a0 Verdict: Soul-suckingly putrid Rating: The publicity for Sucker Punch promises that \u2018You will be unprepared\u2019 and that at least is true. I was unprepared for a film so pretentious, humourless yet laughable that it seems to have been made for 15-year-old boys by a sad middle-aged man whose only experience of life is from violent comics, shoot-\u2019em-up video games and online pornography. Chris Tookey says he was unprepared for a film so pretentious, humourless yet laughable that it seems to have been made for 15-year-old boys by a middle-aged man Even at a time of year after the Oscars when Hollywood studios traditionally bring out their dead \u2014 movies that will neither conquer the box office nor win awards \u2014 Sucker Punch dives to a new low in sleazy, distasteful film-making. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-354862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\nSucker Punch takes Hollywood's love of moronic, sexualised violence to a new low - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/03\/31\/sucker-punch-takes-hollywoods-love-of-moronic-sexualised-violence-to-a-new-low\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Sucker Punch takes Hollywood's love of moronic, sexualised violence to a new low - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"By Chris Tookey Last updated at 10:28 PM on 31st March 2011 \u00a0 Verdict: Soul-suckingly putrid Rating: The publicity for Sucker Punch promises that \u2018You will be unprepared\u2019 and that at least is true. 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