Sucker Punch is a 2011
action-fantasy thriller film, directed by Zack Snyder and co-written by him and
Steve Shibuya. It is Snyder's first film based on an original script. The film
stars Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung,
and Oscar Isaac. The storyline follows the fantasies of a young woman who is
committed to a mental institution, as she makes a plan to escape the hospital
before suffering a lobotomy.
The film was
released in both conventional and IMAX theatres in the United States at
midnight on March 25, 2011.It was released to a generally negative reception
from critics, who considered the film poorly written and acted despite the
visual flair, and significantly underperformed at the box office, barely
recouping its budget with $89 million worldwide, though due to strong DVD and
Blu-Ray sales, has begun to garner a cult following.
Plot
In the 1960s, a
20-year-old girl nicknamed "Babydoll" (Emily Browning), is
institutionalized by her stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) at the Lennox House for
the Mentally Insane after she is blamed for the death of her younger sister.
Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), one of the asylum's orderlies, is bribed by
Babydoll's stepfather into forging the signature of the asylum's psychiatrist,
Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), to have Babydoll lobotomized, so she cannot
inform the authorities of the true circumstances leading to her sister's death.
During her admission to the institution, Babydoll takes note of four items that
would be integral if she were to attempt an escape. In the seconds prior to
being lobotomized, Babydoll retreats into a fantasy world in which she is newly
arrived in a brothel owned by Blue, whom she envisions as a mobster. She
befriends four other dancers – Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens),
Rocket (Jena Malone), and Rocket's sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Dr.
Gorski is envisioned as the girls' dance instructor. Blue informs Babydoll that
her virginity will be sold to a client known as "The High Roller" (Jon
Hamm). The "High Roller" is actually the doctor scheduled to perform
the lobotomy. After Babydoll saves Rocket from a rape attack from the Cook,
Gorski encourages Babydoll to perform an erotic dance, during which Babydoll
fantasizes she's in feudal Japan,
meeting the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). After she expresses her desire to
"escape", the Wise Man presents Babydoll with weapons. He tells her
that she would need to collect five items in order to escape: a map, fire, a
knife, a key, and a fifth, unrevealed item that would require "a deep
sacrifice". Before parting ways, she is confronted by three demonic
samurai giants, which she defeats. As her fantasy ends, she finds herself back
in the brothel, her dance impressing Blue and other onlookers.
Inspired by her
vision of the Wise Man, Babydoll convinces her friends to prepare an escape.
She plots to use her dances as a distraction while the other girls obtain the
necessary tools. During each of her dances, she imagines adventurous events
that mirror the secretly ongoing efforts. These episodes include infiltrating a
bunker protected by steam-powered World War I zombie German soldiers to gain
the map (mirrored by Sweet Pea entering Blue's office and copying a map of the
brothel/institution); storming an Orc-infested castle to cut two fire-producing
crystals from the throat of a baby dragon (mirrored by Amber stealing a lighter
from the breast-pocket of a client/guard of the institution); and boarding a
train and combating mechanized guards to disarm a bomb (mirrored by stealing a
kitchen knife from the belt of the brothel's-instituition's cook). During the
last of these fantasies, Rocket sacrifices herself to save Sweet Pea and is
killed when the bomb detonates, which is paralleled in a fight with the cook
where he fatally stabs Rocket while she's trying to protect her sister.
Blue overhears
Blondie relaying Babydoll's plan to Madam Gorski. After discovering the
gruesome scene around the cook in the kitchen, he has the grieving Sweet Pea
locked in a utility closet and confronts the remainder of the girls backstage,
proceeding to "make examples" by shooting Amber and Blondie. He then
attempts to rape Babydoll, but she stabs him with the kitchen knife and steals
his master key. Babydoll frees Sweet Pea, and the two start a fire so that, as
a result of the fire alarm, the institution's checkpoint doors unlock. The two
manage to escape into the courtyard, where they find their way out blocked by a
throng of men. Babydoll deduces that the fifth item needed for the escape is in
fact herself. Despite Sweet Pea's protest, she insists on sacrificing herself
by distracting the visitors, thus allowing her friend to slip away.
The scene cuts
back to the asylum in which the surgeon (Hamm)
has just performed Babydoll's lobotomy. The surgeon is confused by Babydoll's
expression and starts to question Dr. Gorski as to why she authorized the
procedure. It is also revealed that the happenings in her dream world also
happened in the hospital (stabbing an orderly, starting a fire, and helping
another girl escape). Gorski realizes that Blue has forged her signature, and
summons the police, who apprehend Blue as he attempts to sexually assault a
lobotomized Babydoll. While being led away, Blue shouts that it's the
stepfather they want. The final scene is at the bus station, where Sweet Pea,
who was actually the girl that escaped from the asylum, is stopped by police as
she tries to get on a bus to Fort
Wayne. She is rescued by the bus driver (the Wise
Man), who misleads the police and allows her to board the bus.
Cast
• Emily Browning as Babydoll
• Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea
• Jena
Malone as Rocket
• Vanessa Hudgens and Blondie
• Jamie Chung as Amber
• Carla Gugino as Madame Vera
Gorski/Dr. Vera Gorski
• Oscar Isaac as Blue Jones
• Jon Hamm as the Doctor/The High
Roller
• Scott Glenn as The Wise Man/The
General/The Bus Driver
• Gerard Plunkett as The
Stepfather/Priest
• Robin Atkin Downes as Additional
Voices
• Lex Lang as Additional Voices
• Scott Menville as Additional Voices
• Fred Tatasciore as Additional Voices
Production
"A while ago
I had written a script for myself and there was a sequence in it that made me
think, 'How can I make a film that can have action sequences in it that aren't
limited by the physical realities that normal people are limited by, but still
have the story make sense so it's not, and I don't mean to be mean, like a
bullshit thing like Ultraviolet or something like that." Student cat
Development
Sucker Punch is
described by Snyder as "Alice
in Wonderland with machine guns". The film first gained attention in March
2007. Snyder put the project aside to work on Watchmen first.The film was
co-written with Steve Shibuya, who is the author of the original script that
the story is based on. Snyder directed and produced with his wife and producing
partner, Deborah Snyder, through their Cruel and Unusual Films banner. Wesley
Coller was executive producing.
Warner Bros.
announced in early 2009 that they would distribute Sucker Punch due to the
success of Snyder's previous film, Watchmen. "They've never said, 'Ahh, it
could have been shorter', or, 'Too bad it's so R-ish.' And that's really cool.
I'm challenging them again with Sucker Punch." In early interviews, Snyder
stated that he would make Sucker Punch an R-rated film, but a later interview
stated that he was aiming for it to be rated PG-13 In its theatrical release,
the movie was ultimately rated PG-13. Snyder was ultimately forced to cut many
crucial scenes before the film's release in order to satisfy the MPAA's
censors, but claimed that the home media release of the film will be a
director's cut and closer to his original vision.
When Snyder was
in San Diego
hosting a Blu-ray live screening of Watchmen for Comic-Con, he handed out
t-shirts for Sucker Punch featuring the first art for the film. The art was
designed by Alex Pardee of Snafu Comics.[28] with title art work by Los Angeles graffiti
artist Galo Canote. Pre-production began in June 2009 in Canada. Snyder
had also added that he enjoyed the freedom of filming his own original
script.[29] Photographer Clay Enos was hired to take still pictures on set and
to take portraits of the main actors.
Casting
Before casting
started in March 2009, Snyder revealed his ideal cast for the feature film. He
decided to go with an all-female cast with this film saying that "I
already did the all-male cast with 300, so I'm doing the opposite end of the
spectrum.
Snyder had tapped
Amanda Seyfried first for the lead role, Babydoll. When asked if Seyfried was
up for the role, Snyder said, "We'll see. We're trying to, so ... She's
great. It would be great if it worked out" Snyder had also offered roles
to Abbie Cornish, Evan Rachel Wood, Emma Stone, and Vanessa Hudgens. Despite
Snyder's aim to have her play the role of Babydoll, the actress turned it down
due to conflicting schedules between the film and her HBO series Big Love.[40]
Days later, Browning agreed to replace Seyfried in the role. During the
confirmation of her involvement, Hudgens, Wood, Cornish and Stone were all
still in talks.
Wood dropped out
of the project due to scheduling conflicts with her recurring role in HBO's
True Blood and her stage production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. She was
later replaced by Malone for the role of "Rocket". Chung signed up
for the role of "Amber", which Stone was supposedly tapped to
portray. Gugino, who was cast as "Madam Gorski", a psychiatrist in
the asylum, previously worked with Snyder on Watchmen. Hamm was confirmed in late August 2009 to be
playing "The High Roller". Isaac was also tapped at around the same
time. Snyder confirmed that Glenn agreed to be involved in the project,
portraying "The Wise Man".
Training
Prior to filming,
the cast had trainings and fight evaluations. Training lasted for 12 weeks. It
started June 2009 in Los Angeles
and continued through filming. The main women in the film were told to deadlift
up to 210 pounds (95 kg) for their roles. Damon Caro, the stunt coordinator
from 300 and Watchmen, Snyder's previous films, was hired for the stunts,
training and fight choreography in the movie. The other cast members started
training without Hudgens while she was filming other films, including Beastly.
Abbie Cornish said that the rest of the cast were training, prior to filming,
six hours a day, five days a week, and were oriented with martial fighting,
swords and choreography Snyder said that when the girls are fighting,
"[like] they're on their way to kill a baby dragon, they've killed all of
these orc-like creatures and they're entering a door [and] it's this classic,
real Navy SEAL style room clearing. They have machine guns but they're fighting
mythic creatures, impossible creatures. The hand to hand stuff is all brutal,
because Damon [Caro] did all the [fights] in Bourne and it has that vibe to
it." In the characters' imaginations, Snyder remarks that "they can
do anything.
Production and design
Pre-production
took place in Los Angeles in June 2009 then
moved to Vancouver
in July. Principal photography began in September 2009 and concluded in January
2010; filming took place in Vancouver.
With an $82 million budget, production took place in September 2009 and was
expected to last until January 2010 in Vancouver
and Toronto.
Originally, production would have started in June 2009, but it was postponed.
Production concluded on January 22, 2010. Snyder confirms that prior to the set
production date, he already shot some fantasy sequences for Sucker Punch.
Snyder shares that the film is a "stylized motion picture about action and
sort of landscapes of the imagination and things of that nature." Snyder
has been decided on the film's title for some time and says it concerns a
pop-culture reference. "It's about hopefully what the movie feels like
when you watch it, more than a specific 'Oh, it's a story of this person.' It's
all stylized.
The film includes
an imaginary brothel that the five girls enter in the alternate reality, where
singing and dancing take place. The fantasy sequences include dragons, aliens
and a World War I battle. Snyder expressed his interest in the film's content:
On the other
hand, though it's fetishistic and personal, I like to think that my fetishes
aren't that obscure. Who doesn't want to see girls running down the trenches of
World War One wreaking havoc? I'd always had an interest in those worlds –
comic books, fantasy art, animated films. I'd like to see this, that's how I
approach everything, and then keep pushing it from there.
Rick Carter
served as production designer while the visual effects of the film were done by
Animal Logic with 75 visual effects specialists, and the Moving Picture Company
(MPC) who were awarded over 120 shots. Sucker Punch operates on three levels –
a reality, then a sub-reality where the psych ward world shifts into a strange
high-roller's brothel. The final level is made up of a dream world where more
action sequences that are removed from time and space take place. Warner Bros.
announced earlier that Sucker Punch would be released in 3D format. Zack Snyder
describes the conversion into 3D as a completely different process. However, it
was later announced that the film would not be presented in 3D. Snyder filmed a
"Maximum Movie Mode" interactive Blu-ray commentary for the film's
home media release.
Snyder wanted to
design the movie as something with no limits, considering that he co-wrote the
script from an original idea. He added that he wanted it to "be a cool
story and not just like a video game where you're just loose and going nuts.
Title
The title Sucker
Punch is not explained in the film. Zack Snyder has said that there are two
meanings:
There's a
mechanism in the movie that sneaks up on you. We sort of plant the seed of this
thing, and then at the end of the movie it kind of comes back around. I think
that in some ways, that's what the sucker punch is. But also you, the audience,
have like a preconceived idea when you look at Babydoll. You think she's
innocent and sweet, that she's capable of only a certain amount of things. But
I think that's a mistake. So that has something to do with the title, too.
Andrew O'Hehir,
writing in Salon, sees the film's title its essential theme:
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.
Snyder has stated
one interpretation of the film is that it is a critique on geek culture's
sexism and objectification of women.
Music and dance
"The
exploration of how these songs could be used to tell the story and comment on
the action has been one of the more unusual and satisfactory parts of this
process."
Music plays an
integral role in the film. "In the story, music is the thing that launches
them into these fantasy worlds", Snyder explains. Composer Tyler Bates
said that the songs "function as the subconscious mind of Baby Doll and
her journey", and musical producer Marius de Vries considered "an
important task of the songs to sign place which particular world you are
inhabiting at a particular moment. Music becomes the backbone of the film. They
used actual songs for Sucker Punch that would create suitable moods. It plays
an important factor in the film and is used as it was in Moulin Rouge!,
according to Snyder. Dance choreography was spearheaded by Paul Becker. Emily
Browning did the vocals for the songs Sweet Dreams and Where Is My Mind that are
played during the movie. Carla Gugino had to take singing lessons for scenes
wherein she plays a choreographer madam in the brothel. The brothel scenario
has "sexy" songs, as Jamie Chung described, and dance fantasy scenes.
Due to time constraints, Snyder was forced to cut out most of the dance
sequences for the theatrical cut of the film, but there is one during the
credits. He did mention that for the home media release of the film's
"director's cut", the dance scenes will be re-inserted.
In September
2009, Chung reported that they had begun recording tracks for Sucker Punch.
Oscar Isaac revealed that the songs used in the film are not original, but are
new arrangements of existing music.
Tyler Bates (who
composed all of Snyder's previous live-action films) and Marius de Vries (who
composed the score for the film Moulin Rouge!) wrote the film score. The
official trailers contain samples from the songs "Prologue" by
Immediate Music, "Crablouse" by Lords of Acid, "When the Levee
Breaks" by Led Zeppelin, "Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles,
"And Your World Will Burn" by Cliff Lin, "Panic Switch" by
the Silversun Pickups, and "Illusion of Love" (Fred Falke remix) by
Uffie.
Sucker Punch:
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on March 22, 2011[70] by
WaterTower Music. The soundtrack album contains nine tracks, all covers,
remixes and mash-ups (as the label website says, "wildly re-imagined
versions of classic songs") of tracks by Alison Mosshart, Björk, Queen,
and performances from stars Emily Browning, Carla Gugino, and Oscar Isaac.
Marketing
Sucker Punch
participated in the Comic-Con 2010 and showed the first footage of the film,
featuring the songs "Prologue" by Immediate Music and "The
Crablouse" by Lords of Acid. The trailer was released on Tuesday July 27
on Apple Trailers. The second official trailer was released on Wednesday
November 3 and was attached to Due Date, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows –
Part 1, and Black Swan. On February 15 Titan Books released the official
"Art of the Film" book full of pictures, stills in a way to celebrate
the film's release in the next month.
The film received
a PG-13 rating. To avoid an R rating, a sex scene was cut. Browning said,
"I had a very tame and mild love scene with Jon Hamm ... I think it's great
for this young girl to actually take control of her own sexuality." She
added, "[The MPAA] got Zack to edit the scene and make it look less like
she's into it. Zack said he edited it down to the point where it looked like he
was taking advantage of her. That's the only way he could get a PG-13 [rating]
and he said, 'I don't want to send that message.
Reception
Sucker Punch
received generally negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that only 23% of
194 critics have given Sucker Punch positive reviews, giving it an average
rating of 4/10. Additionally, the film
holds a 33 out of 100 on Metacritic, signifying "generally
unfavorable" reviews among 29 critics.
Although Snyder
himself had claimed that he wanted the film to "be a cool story and not
just like a video game where you're just losing and going nuts, some critics
compared the film unfavorably to a video game in their reviews. Richard Roeper
gave the film a D, saying that it "proves a movie can be loud,
action-packed and filled with beautiful young women – and still bore you to
tears The Orlando Sentinel gave the movie one out of four stars calling it
"an unerotic unthrilling erotic thriller in the video game mold. The A.V.
Club's Nathan Rabin wrote, "with its quests to retrieve magical totems,
clearly demarcated levels, and non-stop action, Snyder's clattering concoction
sometimes feels less like a movie than an extended, elaborate trailer for its
redundant videogame adaptation.
Sucker Punch has
also drawn criticism for its depiction of women. Several critics have described
the movie as misogynistic and others have expressed concern over its treatment
of sexual violence. Critics have also argued that the movie pretends to a
feminism which in fact is a trope for misogyny: Monika Bartyzel of Moviefone
writes, "The women of Zack Snyder's 'Sucker Punch' are not empowered.
Though they are given vicious snarls, swords and guns, the leading ladies of
Snyder's latest are nothing more than cinematic figures of enslavement given
only the most minimal fight. Their rebellion is one of imaginative whimsy in a
heavily misogynistic world that is barely questioned or truly challenged.
Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune stated that "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. St. Petersburg Times critic Steve Persall
found that the most offensive fact about the film was that it "suggests that
all this objectification of women makes them stronger. It's supposed to be
reassuring that men who beat, berate, molest and kill these women will get
what's coming to them. Just wait, Snyder says, but in the meantime here's
another femininity insult to keep you occupied. A.O. Scott of The New York
Times described the film as a "fantasia of misogyny" that pretends to
be a "feminist fable of empowerment" and found that the film's
treatment of sexual violence was problematic. Peter Debruge of Variety argued
that the film is "misleadingly positioned as female empowerment despite
clearly having been hatched as fantasy fodder for 13-year-old guys" and
that the fact that the young women in the movie are "under constant threat
of being raped or murdered" makes the film "highly inappropriate for
young viewers. However, Betsy Sharkey of The Los Angeles Times suggested that
the film neither objectifies nor empowers women and that instead it is a
"wonderfully wild provocation – an imperfect, overlong, intemperate and
utterly absorbing romp through the id that I wouldn't have missed for the
world. Meanwhile, in a retrospective article about the critical reception of
Sucker Punch, James MacDowell questions the alleged misogyny of the film,
arguing that it does not in fact aim to offer female empowerment, but is
instead "a deeply pessimistic analysis of female oppression", because
it makes clear that, "just as men organize the dances, so do they control
the terms of the fight scenes; in neither do the women have true agency, only
an illusion of it. Sucker Punch was later ranked at number one in a feature
entitled "Worst films of the year 2011" written for the NME by Owen Nicholls.
Box office
Sucker Punch
grossed $19,058,199 in its first weekend, an opening that placed it at the #2
rank behind Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. It also opened in 23 markets
that weekend, standing at sixth in the overseas box office with $6.5 million.
The following weekend, it dropped to seventh place in North
America with $6 million, but fared better overseas, where an
expansion to 16 more countries led to a $11.5 million gross which topped the
international ranking. Sucker Punch has so far grossed $36,392,502 domestically
and $53,400,000 abroad, leading to a worldwide total of $89,792,502.
Awards and
nominations
Though the film's
content was derided, the film received some recongnition for the visual effects
of the fantasy sequences. Sucker Punch received a nomination at the 2011 Scream
Awards for Best FX. It was also short-listed as a nominee for the Academy Award
for Best Visual Effects at the 84th Academy Awards.
Home media
Sucker Punch was
released on June 28, 2011 on DVD and in a Blu-ray combo pack. An R-rated
extended cut was included on the Blu-ray release, which adds 18 minutes to the
film. The bonus features include four animated shorts based on the four fantasy
scenarios
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