From the beginning, Sucker Punch looked like a movie a 12-year-old boy might have made with no creative oversight and an unlimited budget. But seeing as how it came from Zack Snyder, who made Watchmen, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and that movie about owls my friend Lindy West assures me is awesome, I was willing to give it a chance. Well, I’m still willing to give it a chance, but the critics who’ve seen it seem to really, really hate it. A few people liked it, but the majority who didn’t reacted almost universally as if it had kicked their puppy and flushed their drug stash. Or flushed their puppy and kicked their drug stash, but either way, they were less than pleased.
“Snyder has described it as “Alice In Wonderland with machine guns,” but it’s more like The Pussycat Dolls Present Steampunk Kill Bill, only more assaultive and pandering than that description suggests.” –Onion A/V Club
“Hands-down the most nightmarishly awful film of the year.” –Philadelphia Inquirer
“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. […] A salacious mess, 0 stars.” -Michael Phillips, Chicago Trib
“An unerotic unthrilling erotic thriller in the video game/comic book crossover vein, “Sucker Punch” is ” “Last Airbender” with bustiers.” –Orlando Sentinel
“300 was interesting, Watchman was bearable, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole was ridiculous, but Sucker Punch is just sad. Like his porcelain heroine, anyone who willingly spends $13 for a ticket to this smut is willfully lobotomizing themselves.” –NY Press (but not Armond White?! for shame!)
“Just what kind of gyrations is Babydoll doing to effect such awe and conjure such imaginary garbage? Is it like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” dance? Because that was pretty powerful.” -Jake Coyle, AP
“Just one big hypersexed slo-mo misfire.” –Movieline
Of course, keep in mind that these opinions come from limp-wristed haemophiliacs not fit to scrub the skidmarks out of my stars-and-bars thong. I couldn’t make it to a press screening this week, but I should have a real review up for you by Monday. Don’t worry, I won’t let the buzz affect me. Frankly, I didn’t hear anything after “violent greasy rape fantasy.”