Suckerpunch
Against my better instincts, I went to see Suckerpunch. It is without a doubt the most awful film I have ever seen.
I expected it would be obnoxiously misogynistic and have at least one problematic sex scene - it's hard to take seriously claims that it's about 'female empowerment' when all the promotional images are of the various female leads made-up to look 10 and dressed in Lolita outfits. I didn't expect that the entire plot would revolve around rape, or the threat of rape, paired with a cast of female characters who are told outright via some shitty exposition that they have no power other than sex appeal. In fact, the whole escape plan relies on the main character, 'Baby Doll'*, doing a "moaning [and] titillating" dance - which we never see, instead getting Zach Snyder's wet dreams - to hypnotise the various men so said rapists don't notice the other girls stealing the various objects they need to break out. Pornifying/raping female characters is par for the course with Snyder, but this truly makes everything bad he's done before pale into insignificance.
And there wasn't even good action! The choreography was pretty dull, the camera work was unremarkable and the over-use of slow-motion and CGI made them seem like crutches for a totally unoriginal, uninteresting narrative vision. I've seen a lot of action movies, including some with ye olde folke, and a frequent criticism they make is that these films are like video games. I'm also a gamer, obviously, and most of the time, that sort of thing isn't really accurate. But in Suckerpunch, it is. It feels like a really crappy game. Everything is very...weak. The characters are wooden and unappealing, thanks to the combination of pretty poor performances and a script so bad it would make a soap star cry. Throw in lazy editing and Snyder's pedestrian direction and you have a recipe for a game that would be rather dull and probably would be banned for being so goddamn enthusiastic about rape.
So enthusiastic, in fact, that the final act of the film is basically one female character submitting to rape (as a metaphor for a lobotomy, because that's how Snyder rolls) to save her friend...from lots of rape. There's no two ways about it - it's a sexploitation film and proud to be so. It's pretty much everything that is wrong with our society's attitudes towards women and sex all wrapped up in a single, horrific package.
*The naming thing was as bad as everything else, with the worst offenders being the above-mentioned 'Baby Doll' and 'Sweet Pea'.
I expected it would be obnoxiously misogynistic and have at least one problematic sex scene - it's hard to take seriously claims that it's about 'female empowerment' when all the promotional images are of the various female leads made-up to look 10 and dressed in Lolita outfits. I didn't expect that the entire plot would revolve around rape, or the threat of rape, paired with a cast of female characters who are told outright via some shitty exposition that they have no power other than sex appeal. In fact, the whole escape plan relies on the main character, 'Baby Doll'*, doing a "moaning [and] titillating" dance - which we never see, instead getting Zach Snyder's wet dreams - to hypnotise the various men so said rapists don't notice the other girls stealing the various objects they need to break out. Pornifying/raping female characters is par for the course with Snyder, but this truly makes everything bad he's done before pale into insignificance.
And there wasn't even good action! The choreography was pretty dull, the camera work was unremarkable and the over-use of slow-motion and CGI made them seem like crutches for a totally unoriginal, uninteresting narrative vision. I've seen a lot of action movies, including some with ye olde folke, and a frequent criticism they make is that these films are like video games. I'm also a gamer, obviously, and most of the time, that sort of thing isn't really accurate. But in Suckerpunch, it is. It feels like a really crappy game. Everything is very...weak. The characters are wooden and unappealing, thanks to the combination of pretty poor performances and a script so bad it would make a soap star cry. Throw in lazy editing and Snyder's pedestrian direction and you have a recipe for a game that would be rather dull and probably would be banned for being so goddamn enthusiastic about rape.
So enthusiastic, in fact, that the final act of the film is basically one female character submitting to rape (as a metaphor for a lobotomy, because that's how Snyder rolls) to save her friend...from lots of rape. There's no two ways about it - it's a sexploitation film and proud to be so. It's pretty much everything that is wrong with our society's attitudes towards women and sex all wrapped up in a single, horrific package.
*The naming thing was as bad as everything else, with the worst offenders being the above-mentioned 'Baby Doll' and 'Sweet Pea'.