Sucker Punch Rejected Geek Rage Contender for Worst Movie Ever

[The Newswire]

When the Sucker Punch billboards first went up in my neighborhood, I felt conflicted. It seemed, on the face of it, to have a decent checklist of things I would like in a movie, but I instinctively lizard-brain hated it. Upon reflection and now that the uniformly...

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[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

The funny thing is, usually people I know hate these movies cause they expect too much from them. On this one though, everyone I know who went to see it had universally low expectations. They were expecting 300 with hot chick, a 90 minute, violent rock video. And still they were disappointed.

That is never a good sign.

[Amelia G]

The funny thing is, usually people I know hate these movies cause they expect too much from them. On this one though, everyone I know who went to see it had universally low expectations. They were expecting 300 with hot chick, a 90 minute, violent rock video. And still they were disappointed.

That is never a good sign.

Totally. When the expectations are that low and the underlying perspective of the movie is so loathsome that it can't even manage to be brainless (forgive the lobotomy pun) entertainment.

[kclark]

Totally. When the expectations are that low and the underlying perspective of the movie is so loathsome that it can't even manage to be brainless (forgive the lobotomy pun) entertainment.

This has been a progressive trend in Hollywood that has almost exploded exponentially since the advent of reliable and realistic CGI. Great visuals, great sound, great action sequences....with total fail on the story tip. Lets throw out some names: Tron, Skyline, Book of Eli, The Last Airbender - ok, maybe that last one didn't have great action sequences, BUT IT COULD HAVE. Sigh.

[Amelia G]

This has been a progressive trend in Hollywood that has almost exploded exponentially since the advent of reliable and realistic CGI. Great visuals, great sound, great action sequences....with total fail on the story tip. Lets throw out some names: Tron, Skyline, Book of Eli, The Last Airbender - ok, maybe that last one didn't have great action sequences, BUT IT COULD HAVE. Sigh.

Ha, ha, Forrest and I were just talking about Book of Eli. There is a screenwriting maxim that you should never kill the cat. So Book of Eli had to open with the cat-killing scene as a jab at the guy who came up with the save the cat expression. Only I just couldn't get into that movie, partly because the cat-killing turned me off the main character and seemed out of place in the movie. He won't eat human flesh, but cats are okay? I get being willing to eat all protein in a post-apocalypse world, but . . . well, anyway, the corollary of save the cat is don't have Don Draper ****/lobotomize the captive 8th grade stripper/hooker.

[Raza]

I considered downloading this the other day. The screencaps and plot keywords seemed great, but the trailer lost my interest somewhere.

I've heard nothing good about it since, until this thing about lobotomizing eight grader hookers.

[kclark]

Ha, ha, Forrest and I were just talking about Book of Eli. There is a screenwriting maxim that you should never kill the cat. [/b][/I].

Or the goose that laid the golden egg. Zardoz was the original version of BoE...I'm sure you remember seeing Sean Connery wearing the Borat style nut-hugger and thigh highs. I've been trying to kill that particular memory with hard drugs for years, to no avail. I digress....wardrobe mistakes aside, that movie was 9000 times the movie that BoE was. Eli even killed the original message in order to pander to the Xian crowd...int he original, the book was "The Wizard of Oz", which sent a whole different message than this "blind man w/a bible" crap.

[Mr Karl]

heh....disempowerment........not a word I'm familiar with....I'll have to ponder that one.................To bad about the movie, the 30 second comercial looked great........Maybe that's the way to go in the future.........just make a good trailers and let people think up thier own story

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

See the thing is, Avatar was pretty week writing and the only character I cared about was the bad guy. Also, I had already seen Fern Gully, so I knew how it ended but the movie did not go out of its way to insult me.

But I haven't seen the movie yet, no what pushed me over the edge was the interview. Here is a clue, if you have to tell me how self aware your movie is.

May get it on netflix and fast forward to the fight scenes, but so far the movie sounds like a misogynistic version of Brasil.

[aXa]

sadly enough, i had been really looking forward to this movie since i say the first teaser trailer way back somewhere around october/november. it looked like it could be good; but it may have just used the only good parts of the movie to make the trailer. i have yet to see it, prolly will still nab it off netflix when i can. i usually ignore the critics and the movie reviewers as i find that they dont appreciate the same sense of aesthetics as i do. however, that being said, and even without having seen the movie yet, i will take amelia's criticisms and analysis of it to heart. i think that what she has pointed out about the movie - and about the attitude of the disenfranchised - is spot on. And it has given me much to think about today.

[Buster Friendly]

Hmmmm, so you say that the director of 300 and The Watchmen made a super shitty movie? Really? Really?

...on the other hand, your review is as strange as usual Amelia. Your take on these things is always decidedly odd. "Disempowerment".

I am kind of curious how you reacted to Brasil, which is also the first thing I thought of when reading your review. Maybe you should just do a movie review blog where you deliver your strange bizzaro world take on various bits of cinema. I'd be curious to hear what you thought of Gilliam's last 3 or 4 offerings actually. Morbidly curious. Weirdo.

...not that I didn't already know that Snyder was going to ruin hot chicks, and violence. Didn't need to see the movie to know that.


Still I was wondering today, just how complicit I am in the success of Tyler Perry. Why am I surrounded by rivers of mediocre shit? I haven't offered a fucking awesome alternative to Snyder or Perry... So maybe it's all my fault somehow for not making a movie that was better than the Matrix. Maybe it's my fault for not seizing the day, and rising to power and crushing Keanu Reeves' career... should have thought about that before I went and made myself all busy.

[Amelia G]

Hmmmm, so you say that the director of 300 and The Watchmen made a super shitty movie? Really? Really?

...on the other hand, your review is as strange as usual Amelia. Your take on these things is always decidedly odd. "Disempowerment".

I am kind of curious how you reacted to Brasil, which is also the first thing I thought of when reading your review. Maybe you should just do a movie review blog where you deliver your strange bizzaro world take on various bits of cinema. I'd be curious to hear what you thought of Gilliam's last 3 or 4 offerings actually. Morbidly curious. Weirdo.

...not that I didn't already know that Snyder was going to ruin hot chicks, and violence. Didn't need to see the movie to know that.


Still I was wondering today, just how complicit I am in the success of Tyler Perry. Why am I surrounded by rivers of mediocre shit? I haven't offered a fucking awesome alternative to Snyder or Perry... So maybe it's all my fault somehow for not making a movie that was better than the Matrix. Maybe it's my fault for not seizing the day, and rising to power and crushing Keanu Reeves' career... should have thought about that before I went and made myself all busy.

I get that sometimes my perspective may be unusual because my life experiences are somewhat unique, but, in this instance, pretty much everyone thinks Sucker Punch sucks. What about noting the disempowerment message of the film is odd for you?

Director Zack Snyder says he was inspired by Brazil or at least he is quoted in the movie PR materials as saying Sucker Punch is a "big, crazy fairy tale influenced by Brazil." Hollywood Bitchslap responded saying, "In essence, “Sucker Punch” is kind of like Terry Gilliam’s landmark fantasy “Brazil” might have been like if it had been directed by an emotionally, intellectually and artistically deficient idiot." I'm not sure I see the similarity. In what ways do you feel the movies are alike?

[Buster Friendly]

the ending seems directly ripped off from Brazil, the whole fantasy world escape rescue but got lobotomized anyway thing.

but of course zak snyder sucks sweaty spartan testicles. he just sucks it's obvious.

didn't you have some sort of grudge against that dead dude molly ringwald ringworm, whatever?

it's not that the movie sucks, the fact that everyone says it does almost, almost makes me want to see. but i don't. it's hilarious to me that just about everyone who defended the watchmen before it came out saw it and was like 'wtf? i didn't get it. that was lame."

it's your interpretation of why he sucks that's so strange. "zak snyder made a super shitty misogynistic awful movie, he must be out to disempower at.pr0n girls who rejected him at a club somewhere." it's your odd choice of assigning motivations, and reactions to social interactions that make your view point so strange. you've said that tucker max is hilarious, and that "douchebag" is a term that unsuccessful guys use out of jealousy for guys who are popular. just where you draw these lines is what's so idiosyncratic. you rail against those dumb 16pinksock teen movies for being socially normative, but find that unfunny borat/bruno chick to be a menace. you're a total weirdo Amelia. as far as i can tell max and snyder are cut from the same douchecloth. your spat over burning crotch, and softpeddling randoid objectivism are other examples.

i'm not saying any of this as a dig at you, it's just how i see you. busybusybusy, gotta run.

[TheDeathKnight]

I waited until this weekend to see it, because I didn't want to boost their opening weekend numbers.

Anyhow, all the fantasy scenes are visually cool to watch.

Although I wish they had each setting unique.
They tended to mix them all together, so you have WW2 planes
in the orc/dragon fantasy, and you have modern weapons in the
steampunk WW1 fantasy, etc. I'd rather they had very specific
sequences that were entirely in those unique worlds. But I think what
he did was intentional. It was catering to the teenage boys who
say to themselves, "Wouldn't it be cool to go to middle earth with
machine guns and kick ass?" But the end result is that it made
all of them sort of similar in terms of what was happening.
It was almost always swords and guns. Just killing different
creatures/enemies.

And obviously, the story was not very good. If you look at
movies like "The Matrix" or "Inception" and compare them
to SuckerPunch, you realize it's pretty damn weak.
Again, if they were trying to appeal to 13 year old boys,
maybe a simple story is what they wanted.

But honestly, I think Amelia hit the nail on the head, that there
is no way to make people like a movie where the main character
ends up NOT winning. It's fine for a art film like Requiem For a Dream,
or some David Lynch movie. But if you are doing a mainstream
action movie, it's never going to be liked if the main character
dies or gets lobotomized at the end. As Amelia said, if the main
point is that victims get to live in an awesome fantasy world,
that's not winning. It's not actually beating the system. There
is nothing wrong with showing fantasy as a good thing. But
to show the end result as a failure, no one will enjoy that
kind of result. If she could have used her fantasy and
imagination to escape, that would have been a positive result.

I need to re-watch Pan's Labyrinth. Because that movie has the
same general concept. But I remember enjoying that movie...
I tend to actually like depressing movies, but at least I recall
the little girl in that movie as being a strong character.

Maybe it was just bad acting/directing.

[Buster Friendly]

Snyder's a scientologist, go figure.

Which would explain why he keeps getting work, up next he'll do a lame superman movie.

[Rockwulf]

I apparently am the only one who actually liked the flick. I thought it was visually beautiful and the action scenes were badass. I knew going in that I'd have to power down my brain and just enjoy it in the spirit it was offered, which is a 2 hour piece of escapism with popcorn and snuck-in beers.

[Raza]

I liked The Watchmen. It was like the whole movie was the gag the Comedian claimed as his trademark but failed to deliver; a caricatural and pluriform parade of human ugliness and failure turned up to eleven. M'not sure that was intentional, but the misanthrope in me appreciated the detail to the cynicism.

Buster - I don't think Amelia's assigned motives are that odd. I mean, she can't really say with certainty, but gender-normative males are usually deeply affected by their perceived ability to score with their taste in female company. Judging from the interview he probably believes he's not letting that affect him, but as a background motive clouded by powerful cultural norms I wouldn't trust him to know.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

Unfortunately, Sucker Punch only got a 1 week release over here. I know some steampunk friends that wanted to go see it, as did my wife, but when they finally got around to going, it had been taken down. We never even got the chance to pass judgement on it, so I can't say whether it is good or bad. I suppose we can rent it when it come out on dvd, so we at least haven't spent too much cash on it.

[aXa]

yea, as it stands, its in my netflix queue, and will move to next when it becomes available asap. however, i must admit to being curious about the soundtrack cd. i saw it had a cover of "you put a spell on me" among some other stuff; just aint sure if its more soundtrack or just a score. prolly won be too hard to find it used for only a few bucks.

[Raza]

...or you could download it and neither wait, nor pay for it at all.

If Amelia's right and the thing spreads a negative cultural message you wouldn't want to have paid them for that, would you? Even real theft is often more morally defensible than handing your money to the wrong people. [/instigator]

[Rockwulf]

Obvious troll is obvious. heh

[Mr Karl]

huh.......well, since it's got the neccassery review, I guess I'll take thew time to check it out

[BiggTruxx]

Recently rewatched "Return to Oz" with a young Fairuza Balk in the lead... Same point... Lobotomy is OK cause little girls (i.e. all women) live in a fantasy world anyway. Not a great thesis IMO.

BTW Sry fr resurrecting old thread... Let's just all stick to what we are good at: Newswire will post; Raza, you be dour and cynical; everyone else, be cool, and I'll post 6 months later... Carry on.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

I think there is a big difference between return to oz and sucker punch.

IIRC in return she uses her fantasy to escape, literally of physically.

In sucker she uses her fantasies to provide boys with more fantasies, [spoiler] and allow the hospital staff to **** her so that another girl, who could be a serial arsonists and multiple murderer for all we know, can escape and the hero can get ice picked.[/spoiler]