SUCKER PUNCH HITS US WITH ONE FINAL TRAILER

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if I get a visual headfuck that's basically a big budget answer to a b-movie, cult, live action Heavy Metal of the type I'd have caught as a late night movie at the age of fifteen, I'll be more than happy - chuffed even.

That's a pretty bad trailer, the music doesn't really work at all. Reminds me more of some kids attempt at video-editing uploaded onto youtube.

Irrespective of that, I'm still optimistic about the flick

This looks freakin' sweet.

I don't know what to say... Looks really pretty in a very calculating, emotionless way.

If any of the early word is true, the film's trainwreck.

Looks like Maxim and White Dwarf fucked and produced a film. It feels too much like it's straining to be a big-budget cult movie. Movies with that status on their mind during production almost never turn out right.

It feels like SKY CAPTAIN to me, honestly.

Elisabeth Rappe, Sucker Punch looks like a...Must See!

Yep. Still psyched. Fuck all y'all, or something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

 

It feels like SKY CAPTAIN to me, honestly.

Same feeling here.
 

felix, To me, Sky Captain was...Awesome!  If, Sucker Punch is even close to Sky Captain, then it will be a truly great film.  Of course for Zack Snyder, I expect his film after Sucker Punch to be even more...SUPER, MAN!

Sucker Punch actually reminds me of the Dungeonmaster or Ragewar produced by Charles Band in the 80s. That also utilized random setting to connect the barest of stories. But that movie also had multiple directors to justify the randomness.

This looks interesting but not really good. I wish this preview had more story information, if there even is more. The music video vibe from this is just a giant turn off.

It looks like god-awful, soulless junk.  I'm sure it will make a bazillion dollars.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Clark 

Yep. Still psyched. Fuck all y'all, or something.

Seconded. Going to find the biggest local screen showing this and see it there.

And yet you didn't like SCOTT PILGRIM.

I'm going to assume that the fantasy aspects of the movie are actually the collective unconscious of the asylum girls willed into existence. It'll turn out at the end of the film that the aslyum is run by a mad doctor (aren't they all?) who is stealing their brainwaves/lifeforce to punch a hole in reality to another dimension. Or something.

Trailer looks ridiculously fun.

This looks like deep-fried dogshit to me. The film equivalent of a fried Oreo or one of those cheeseburgers sandwiched between two Krispy Kreme donuts; empty junk piled on top of more empty junk, with a side helping of some more empty calories to pad it all out.

Of course, I keep trying to change my mind but the fact remains: I just don't like Zack Snyder at all and this film seems like the culmination of all of his worst instincts (for my taste, at least).

And even from a flat out "empty spectacle" perspective, it looks cheesy and overly fake to me. Also a horribly cut trailer music-wise. I agree with Paul Allen that is feels like a fan-edit to one of their favorite songs that just doesn't fit.

But you guys that are looking forward to it: enjoy. I hope it's everything your geek wet-dreams are made of (and I say that sincerely). I know negative-Nancy's like me are annoying, this stuff just pushes a special button in me that compels me to comment on my discontent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

And yet you didn't like SCOTT PILGRIM.

If you read my remarks about SP, I said I thought the visual/technical aspects were amazing and worthy of praise. It was the characters and story that left me cold.

Could happen with this, too. Don't know. I was willing to give SP a theatrical viewing, and I'm willing to give this one, too. My expectations, though, and what I'm wanting from SUCKER PUNCH differ wildly from SP. From all the reviews and adulation, I was expecting a rich emotional experience with SP, and was thoroughly let down. I'm not going into SP with that kind of expectation. From the trailers, also, I'm thinking Snyder's visual language and tropes are much more aligned to my own preferences and sensibilities than Wright's in SP.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by joeypants 

 

 

But you guys that are looking forward to it: enjoy. I hope it's everything your geek wet-dreams are made of (and I say that sincerely). I know negative-Nancy's like me are annoying, this stuff just pushes a special button in me that compels me to comment on my discontent.

Dear Nancy:

Don't change. Your nagging nabobs of negativism help balance out our less intelligent cravings.

If it helps, Snyder's one for two with me. I loved 300, but found WATCHMEN wanting (and weirdly its visual strengths played against the thematic elements of the story). So it'll be interesting to see how this one hits me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

Looks like Maxim and White Dwarf fucked and produced a film. It feels too much like it's straining to be a big-budget cult movie. Movies with that status on their mind during production almost never turn out right.

 

It feels like SKY CAPTAIN to me, honestly.

Andrew you just helped me figure this one out. Just like Twilight was aimed at 15 year old girls and 40 year old spinsters, this film is aimed at 15 year old boys and 40 year old manchildren.

Snyder should just go ahead and rename this movie Kitchen Sink.

So this is what it looks like when an Anime/video game geek gets carte blanche to indulge all of his worst fetishes.

This won't do well. Pandering to the geek crowd has never paid off. Norms are going to look at this and think it looks retarded, and the critics will confirm their suspicions upon release. It's a dog and the studio knows it. 

My personal opinion of the film's potential quality aside, armchair-quarterbacking over its box office prospects/popularity with the larger audience seems kinda sour and unfounded. Weirder things have happened than this sort of picture becoming a sleeper hit - 300 becoming one of the most widely-seen and popular films of the last decade, for example.

I like Snyder and he's earned benefit of the doubt from me.  But having said that, I abhore movies that take place solely in a character's mind and I thought Sky Captain was soulless garbage.  So this has two strikes against it but I will keep an open mind until the reviews come out. 

Sky Captain! Holy shit, that just clicked with me--that's what all of Zack Snyder's movies feel like to me. Stilted, stagey, monochrome nonsense with nonentities reciting terrible dialogue in front of obviously fake sets. See also the Star Wars prequels and Sin City, though the latter is probably the best of this otherwise useless subgenre. Snyder's action is more fluid and he piles on the slo-mo, but yeah, his stuff is Sky Captain all the way.

I think what's so enraging about Snyder--besides the fact that he keeps latching onto classic geek properties and ruining them--is the way he has a perplexing amount of otherwise intelligent and discriminating geeks cheering him on, or at least willing to shrug and say "well it looks like it might be fun if we turn our brains off..." In particular, I'll never understand Devin's blind spot regarding the guy. His movies fail to engage even on a visceral, action-movie level, for me, precisely because they're so fakey and stagey.

Well, as one of the few admirers of SKY CAPTAIN, that comparison works for me.

Having said that, I'm abstaining from watching the new trailer as I don't want all the money shots spoiled for me this close to release.  I'm still very much on board with this film.  If that makes me a sexually-frustrated man-child, so be it. 

Why do people care what other critics say about a film anyway?  Unless a critic likes fantasy action films, more often than not, said film will get a negative review.  75% of the reviews I read are the critics that hate a film I...Love, just to get amusement from their review.  The other 25% are the ones I generally disagree with something in their review, but I might also agree with part of what they say.  Sucker Punch is like most of the films I see...Review Proof!  No bad review can deter me, when I want to see a film.  Sure, Sucker Punch does include many of the subject action/anime fans love, and more, but that is fine.  Why set the film in WWI, Other Worlds, Fantasyland, have only...one supergal, when It can feature...5, along with EEEEEEvil Samurai Superrobots.  Hopefully, Sucker Punch will have a positive ending, instead of giving moviegoers a true...Sucker Punch, like letting the bad guys win.

Production Design: The Movie

Quote:

Originally Posted by duke fleed 

 Hopefully, Sucker Punch will have a positive ending, instead of giving moviegoers a true...Sucker Punch, like letting the bad guys win.

Snyder's not above this shit, you realize. He's good at pyrrhic victory endings. I could very easily see this ending like Brazil.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prankster 

 

I think what's so enraging about Snyder--besides the fact that he keeps latching onto classic geek properties and ruining them--is the way he has a perplexing amount of otherwise intelligent and discriminating geeks cheering him on, or at least willing to shrug and say "well it looks like it might be fun if we turn our brains off..." In particular, I'll never understand Devin's blind spot regarding the guy. His movies fail to engage even on a visceral, action-movie level, for me, precisely because they're so fakey and stagey.

What geek properties has he "ruined"? I thought his DAWN OF THE DEAD was pretty well received. 300, though not liked well in these parts it seems, didn't ruin the graphic novel as it was pretty much a shot by shot moving adaptation (and it's "fake" feeling was a deliberate choice, to amp up the campfire nature of it - you may not like it, but it wasn't a gimmick). WATCHMEN hardly "ruined" the graphic novel; and while I hold the film as a failure, it's an interesting, well-constructed one with a few great elements in there.

It seems like, at worst, he has a 1-1-1 record; most might consider it a 2-1 or even a 3-0.

I don't think Sucker Punch will have legs; it might, might, win its weekend, but it's far more niche than WATCHMEN. It's more like SCOTT PILGRIM WRT audience, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did similar numbers.

Dawn of the Dead is extremely average. 300 is terrible, though yes the graphic novel is terrible too. But Watchmen? Saying he didn't ruin it must be very subjective, because I think it's absolutely horrendous.

Justin Clark, Well, you might be right, if I ever saw...Brazil!

MichaelM, I never saw Snyder's remake of, Dawn Of The Dead, so for me, he is...2-0, with, Watchmen and 300 being my favorite films that he has directed.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

Dawn of the Dead is extremely average. 300 is terrible, though yes the graphic novel is terrible too. But Watchmen? Saying he didn't ruin it must be very subjective, because I think it's absolutely horrendous.

What I meant, and didn't express very well, is that the source material is still great, undiminished by Snyder's filmed adapation. I think his version of WATCHMEN is a failure, a huge misfire, but I don't think it's horrendous.
 

People getting jerked around in front of pretty CG backdrops does nothing for me. I like my action to seem like it takes place in actual psysical space. It's just my preference. I actuallly like Snyder's Dawn of the Dead and think he's good when reigned in somewhat. This just looks like masturbatory nonsense. I don't care if the lame, "it's all in their minds" premise allows for that. It still looks like nerd barf to me.

I think, if he had his druthers, the entire film would be like this trailer. No dialogue, no acting, no story, just art design. Zach Snyder is not a fan of acting. It's too bad Owl Movie: Hoot Hoot Owl Time wasn't a big success, because I feel his talents would be better served in the animated realm, which is what he seems to be going for every time anyway.

It's all about the ratio: if it's 12 kinds of awesome, and only 6 kinds of stupid, fine. The reverse? Not so fine.

I guess I just find good movies to be awesome and bad movies to be stupid. So Snyder's ratio is 0 to 3. 

I kid, but I get the point. There's a number of lackluster movies I've enjoyed because of a single element, but for me personally, art design and CGI aren't the kind of things that can redeem a film. A weird and low-key comic performance from Kat Williams? Sure. A mountain of real live worms? I'm there. But not CGI.

I get where the "This looks stupid" club is coming from, but I still kinda scratch my head at a world where Samurai, giant robots, World War I, insane asylums, and kung fu in one movie doesnt arouse some small part of the fun center of a nerd's imagination. Whether Snyder does it well is up in the air, and I'll be the first one to call bullshit if I'm entirely disengaged from it, past the fact that so much of it is CG, which i think is a huge part of the disconnect. And, again, I get it. Maybe it's me. My suspension of disbelief comes easy. Use CG to show me something fucking IMPOSSIBLE to pull off physically, show me youre at least trying to use the freedom a intangible landscape offers to good use, I'll give you a pass. That's all i've ever asked.

It's only when you're using it for something that can be accomplished with enough work without spending the GNP of a major EU country on it that I cease to buy it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Clark 

I get where the "This looks stupid" club is coming from, but I still kinda scratch my head at a world where Samurai, giant robots, World War I, insane asylums, and kung fu in one movie doesnt arouse some small part of the fun center of a nerd's imagination. Whether Snyder does it well is up in the air, and I'll be the first one to call bullshit if I'm entirely disengaged from it, past the fact that so much of it is CG, which i think is a huge part of the disconnect. And, again, I get it. Maybe it's me. My suspension of disbelief comes easy. Use CG to show me something fucking IMPOSSIBLE to pull off physically, show me youre at least trying to use the freedom a intangible landscape offers to good use, I'll give you a pass. That's all i've ever asked.

 

 

One, two, hell even three of those things are fun in tandem. It's the throwing them all together with hot chixx with samurai swords that makes it feel like nerd pandering.

And seriously, why would this world of dragons and zombies and robots be the world in to which hot girls go to escape? They've all got the inner fantasy life of a 14 year old Anime fan? The whole thing just seems desperate.
 

I just don't get this "checklist" mentality either. You could take 14 of my biggest pet interests and slam them all into a film, that doesn't mean I automatically turn my brain off and go "fuck it, I'm in. I'll take a ticket, please."

Obviously it's not that cut and dry for a lot of you and I'm oversimplifying a bit. But so far THAT'S really the biggest praise this film has been getting from people that actually want to see it. "Dude! Fucking Hott Chixxx, Samurais, WW I, ZOMBIES, Swords... how could you NOT want to watch it?!"

Although, who am I to judge? I guess it's fair to have this little geek-interest checklist that as long as all the boxes are checked, you will instantly be hot to see it.

I get the geek-interest checklist but again, It's Zack Snyder. If Brett Ratner or Shawn Levy were doing Zombies and Robots and Samurais I wouldn't be excited either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

I get the geek-interest checklist but again, It's Zack Snyder. If Brett Ratner or Shawn Levy were doing Zombies and Robots and Samurais I wouldn't be excited either.

 True.  Ultraviolet had a lot of the same elements, and that was mainly intolerable.  Snyder has earned enough goodwill from me to be excited for this one. 

 Everything else he's done has been an adaptation or a remake though. This has sprung from his own "imagination".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ratty 

Well, as one of the few admirers of SKY CAPTAIN, that comparison works for me.

I unashamedly love Sky Captain, but Sucker Punch looks like a turd polished to a mirror bright shine.  The only thing that works for me is the scantily clad hot chicks, and I can get those anywhere on the internet.  And I can't help but think that the porn parody will have a more coherent plot than the real movie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelM 

 

What I meant, and didn't express very well, is that the source material is still great, undiminished by Snyder's filmed adapation.
 

No. Snyder literally went back in time and shot George Romero, Frank Miller and Alan Moore in the heads, then defiled their corpses.

OBVIOUSLY I meant he botched the adaptations. DERP. But I don't think it's a huge stretch to say he tainted the material. When there's a remake of a classic horror movie these days, I think a lot of people check out the remake thinking they're getting the same basic material without having to deal with the dated aspects. But most of these--and Snyder's DotD is no exception--show a depressing tendency to homogenize the original material, rendering it "safe" and empty, regardless of how entertaining they may actually be. It frankly freaks me out a little--it's almost like a propaganda campaign to edit out the subtext and subversiveness of classic films.

As for Watchmen, Snyder's film was a lot of people's first exposure to the material. It blew all the twists and shocks in service of a badly handled emotional and intellectual void of empty spectacle. You can't read the comic after seeing the movie and have the same experience. And if there's ever going to be a GOOD adaptation of Watchmen, it's going to have to wait several decades.

He even got 300 wrong, astoundingly, though admittedly that's not on the same plane as the others.

I don't think it's a case of "Nice try, but no." I think this is a filmmaker whose priorities are completely screwed up, and I do tend to think that he's cynically pandering to nerds to some degree. He may be sincere in his love for these properties, but as an artist, he's got nothing up his sleeve. I think it's telling that for his first non-adaptation he's just throwing in everything that he thinks video gamers will enjoy--he doesn't have someone else's beloved material to lean on, so he's going down the aforementioned nerd checklist. He doesn't want to tell a story or make art, he just wants nerds to love him.

   Sucker Punch looks like a fun movie. However  I find its theme of girl empowerment odd. Women are powerful as long as they're hot, dress in tight clothes, and fight robots, dragons, and zombie German soldiers. Basically women are equal as long as they act in a way that the 14 year old boy in some of us would approve of. Just a thought.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prankster 

No. Snyder literally went back in time and shot George Romero, Frank Miller and Alan Moore in the heads, then defiled their corpses.

 

OBVIOUSLY I meant he botched the adaptations. DERP. But I don't think it's a huge stretch to say he tainted the material. When there's a remake of a classic horror movie these days, I think a lot of people check out the remake thinking they're getting the same basic material without having to deal with the dated aspects. But most of these--and Snyder's DotD is no exception--show a depressing tendency to homogenize the original material, rendering it "safe" and empty, regardless of how entertaining they may actually be. It frankly freaks me out a little--it's almost like a propaganda campaign to edit out the subtext and subversiveness of classic films.

 

As for Watchmen, Snyder's film was a lot of people's first exposure to the material. It blew all the twists and shocks in service of a badly handled emotional and intellectual void of empty spectacle. You can't read the comic after seeing the movie and have the same experience. And if there's ever going to be a GOOD adaptation of Watchmen, it's going to have to wait several decades.

 

He even got 300 wrong, astoundingly, though admittedly that's not on the same plane as the others.

 

I don't think it's a case of "Nice try, but no." I think this is a filmmaker whose priorities are completely screwed up, and I do tend to think that he's cynically pandering to nerds to some degree. He may be sincere in his love for these properties, but as an artist, he's got nothing up his sleeve. I think it's telling that for his first non-adaptation he's just throwing in everything that he thinks video gamers will enjoy--he doesn't have someone else's beloved material to lean on, so he's going down the aforementioned nerd checklist. He doesn't want to tell a story or make art, he just wants nerds to love him.

Way more polite than I would have put it. But yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Prankster 

 

No. Snyder literally went back in time and shot George Romero, Frank Miller and Alan Moore in the heads, then defiled their corpses.

 

OBVIOUSLY I meant he botched the adaptations. DERP. But I don't think it's a huge stretch to say he tainted the material. When there's a remake of a classic horror movie these days, I think a lot of people check out the remake thinking they're getting the same basic material without having to deal with the dated aspects. But most of these--and Snyder's DotD is no exception--show a depressing tendency to homogenize the original material, rendering it "safe" and empty, regardless of how entertaining they may actually be. It frankly freaks me out a little--it's almost like a propaganda campaign to edit out the subtext and subversiveness of classic films.

 

As for Watchmen, Snyder's film was a lot of people's first exposure to the material. It blew all the twists and shocks in service of a badly handled emotional and intellectual void of empty spectacle. You can't read the comic after seeing the movie and have the same experience. And if there's ever going to be a GOOD adaptation of Watchmen, it's going to have to wait several decades.

 

He even got 300 wrong, astoundingly, though admittedly that's not on the same plane as the others.

 

I don't think it's a case of "Nice try, but no." I think this is a filmmaker whose priorities are completely screwed up, and I do tend to think that he's cynically pandering to nerds to some degree. He may be sincere in his love for these properties, but as an artist, he's got nothing up his sleeve. I think it's telling that for his first non-adaptation he's just throwing in everything that he thinks video gamers will enjoy--he doesn't have someone else's beloved material to lean on, so he's going down the aforementioned nerd checklist. He doesn't want to tell a story or make art, he just wants nerds to love him.

I'll give you Day Of The Dead. It mostly got its goodwill by being actually fun and watchable and not the surprise colonoscopy everyone expected it to be.

But I have to disagree on Watchmen and 300. First of all, just how did he get 300 wrong? If anything I believe he actually improved on the comic. You may disagree with the movie's perceived politics but what exactly did he get wrong?

And Watchmen? Where DOTD benefited from everyone's non existent expectations, with Watchmen it was the opposite. People expected impossible to achieve things from it. And as for empty spectacle? If anything Snyder should be commended for resisting the temptation to add more flash. He added what, a thirty second fight scene in a two hour plus film? Other than that the comic's themes of dysfunction, fascist tendencies and alienation were pretty much handled as in the book. The only misstep I wholeheartedly admit was Goode's miscasting as Veidt.

The 300 as pro Bush metaphor never held up for me.  The threat is the Persians, who the Spartans fight despite the odds being against them. In the real world the threat is Bin Laden. A man Bush said he doesn't think about and isn't concerned with. However he did invade a country that wasn't a threat to America. I just see 300 as a weird action movie. 

The argument against Snyder's WATCHMEN is that you had someone like Paul Greengrass, who acknowledged the differences between the mediums of film and comic-book and was looking to adapt WATCHMEN into its own cinematic beast, but then Snyder comes along and essentially xeroxes the graphic novel and throws in a few fight scenes. He might "get" the book, but his filmed version of it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how page-to-screen adaptations work. It's clunky and stilted and sure, he gets off a few good scenes (the opening credits, Manhattan on Mars), but there's no resonance. He didn't adapt the book, he made the safest version of it possible, and you might as well pick up the GN because it did it all first and much, much better.

How can you compare relative merit between an actual movie and a hypothetical one? On its own I think Watchmen is the best comic book movie yet, even if it isn't the most fun. Plus, I feel that those of us 'defending' Watchmen have to face completely different arguments depending on who we're talking to. It's either a slavish copy and paste from the book or a gutting and display of merely the book's skin.

And I don't think that setting it in current period as Greengrass wanted would be a good thing. Without the ever present threat of annihilation the story isn't as potent. Our current conflicts despite their viciousness and pervasiveness seem amateurish compared to the huge stakes of a Cold War about to turn nuclear.