Sucker Punch is Balls

(Image taken from: suckerpunchtrailer.net)

Battle: LA sucks. It sucks balls. But so does Sucker Punch, and I'm really trying to decide which one I hated more, as both are fundamentally terrible films that put me to sleep, making each picture essentially an 11 dollar nap.

Now, while Battle: LA was awful, here's what it had going for it in its awfulness. It's a movie about aliens invading Earth. While some may say, well, that's no excuse, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Aside from the classic sci-fi films of the 50s and 60s where Earth invasions were pretty much messages about whatever the hot topic was at the time, alien invasion movies today are all about what looks good blown up from different angles. So they're pretty much destined to be shitty films with a good one here or there being the exception rather than the rule.

But Sucker Punch was meant to be so much more. Now, I may have a bit of a bias about it since a majority of it takes place in the mind, and I've been writing a book for the past three years that primarily takes place in the mind, so there's definitely that sense of rivalry involved. But Inception, which I was also highly worried about at the time, was also a mind-bender, and that was done really well. Almost, TOO well, even, so I have no problems with a deep film if it really pushes the envelope. But Sucker Punch doesn't push shit but color and loud and obnoxious music your way, making you just want to stand up and shout, BOO-URNS! BOO-URNS! at the screen. Even the people walking out the theater behind me were making fun of how lousy it was, and I went to the late show yesterday. Perhaps if I had gone to the even later show, I would have heard more cheers and beer burps from the attendants who were either too stoned or too dumb to fully grasp just how terrible it is. The visuals were quite nice at times, so I can see how seeing it under the influence might be a bit of a trip. But for all else, it blows. It blows hard.

But you want to know why the movie REALLY sucks? It's because nothing is really at stake in all of this. I'm sure if you're reading this piece, then you must have read one of the various articles about the movie already, and if you have, then I'm sure that you've seen this argument about the movie before. And it's true, as nothing is really at stake at all.



Sure, you can read into the ending a bit more, but even if you do, was anything really at stake for our protagonist, Babydoll? In fact, if we ARE to read into the ending, then why did Babydoll get all of the screen time in the action sequences? Why would somebody else have those thoughts when they would certainly be the center of their own imagination? (People who have seen the movie will understand what I mean. Or not).

All the same, the story sucked and Zack Snyder seemed to have gotten lost in his own world, which can happen, sure, as I've done it as well. But that said, a movie that's flawed like this should NOT be put in the theaters. It should be ironed out beforehand.

Sucker Punch, overall, is a complete and utter mess and is to be avoided at all costs like the plague. Or like Battle: LA. They're pretty much on the same level.