Sucker Punch (film)
Encyclopedia
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.
), is institutionalized by her sexually abusive
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. 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); and boarding a train and combating mechanized guards to disarm a bomb (mirrored by Rocket stealing a kitchen knife from the belt of the brothel'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 gentlemen. 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 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.
first. The film was co-written with Steve Shibuya, who is the author of the original score 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
. 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. Photographer Clay Enos
was hired to take still pictures on set and to take portraits of the main actors.
, 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
. 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".
and continued through filming. The main women in the film were told to deadlift
up to 210 pounds (95.3 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."
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:
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."
Andrew O'Hehir, writing in Salon
, sees the film's title its essential theme:
Snyder has stated one interpretation of the film is that it is a critique on geek culture's sexism and objectification of women.
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 signplace 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 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.
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 trail 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.
reports that only 23% of 194 critics have given the film 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."
. 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.
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
-fantasy
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
thriller film, directed by Zack Snyder
Zack Snyder
Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder is an American actor, film director, screenwriter, and producer. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics...
and co-written by him and Steve Shibuya
Steve Shibuya
Steve Shibuya is an American screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 2011 film Sucker Punch....
. It is Snyder's first film based on an original script. The film stars Emily Browning
Emily Browning
Emily Jane Browning is an Australian film actress and fashion model, known for her roles as Violet Baudelaire in Brad Silberling's 2004 film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Anna Ivers in the 2009 film The Uninvited, as Babydoll in Zack Snyder's 2011 action thriller Sucker...
, Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
, Jena Malone
Jena Malone
Jena Malone is an American actress and musician who has appeared on television, in films, and on Broadway. She made her movie debut with the film Bastard Out of Carolina , and has appeared in films including Contact , Stepmom , Donnie Darko , Saved! , Into the Wild , and Sucker Punch .Malone is...
, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung
Jamie Chung
Jamie Jilynn Chung is an American actress known to reality television audiences as a cast member on the MTV reality television series, The Real World: San Diego and its spin-off show, Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno II, and for her appearances in TV and films, such as I Now...
, and Oscar Isaac
Oscar Isaac
-Personal life:Isaac was born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother, Maria Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban pulmonologist father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernandez. He was raised in Miami, Florida. While in Miami, he played lead guitar and sang vocals for his band "The Blinking Underdogs"...
. 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
Lobotomy
Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
.
The film was released in both conventional and IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
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.
Plot
In the 1960s, a 20-year-old girl nicknamed "Babydoll" (Emily BrowningEmily Browning
Emily Jane Browning is an Australian film actress and fashion model, known for her roles as Violet Baudelaire in Brad Silberling's 2004 film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Anna Ivers in the 2009 film The Uninvited, as Babydoll in Zack Snyder's 2011 action thriller Sucker...
), is institutionalized by her sexually abusive
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
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
Oscar Isaac
-Personal life:Isaac was born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother, Maria Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban pulmonologist father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernandez. He was raised in Miami, Florida. While in Miami, he played lead guitar and sang vocals for his band "The Blinking Underdogs"...
), 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
Carla Gugino
Carla Gugino is an American actress known for her roles of Sally Jupiter in Watchmen, Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch, Lucille in Sin City, Amanda Daniels in seasons 3, 5 and 7 of Entourage, Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids film trilogy, and as the lead characters of the television series Karen Sisco...
), to have Babydoll lobotomized
Lobotomy
Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
, 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
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
owned by Blue, whom she envisions as a mobster. She befriends four other dancers – Amber (Jamie Chung
Jamie Chung
Jamie Jilynn Chung is an American actress known to reality television audiences as a cast member on the MTV reality television series, The Real World: San Diego and its spin-off show, Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno II, and for her appearances in TV and films, such as I Now...
), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone
Jena Malone
Jena Malone is an American actress and musician who has appeared on television, in films, and on Broadway. She made her movie debut with the film Bastard Out of Carolina , and has appeared in films including Contact , Stepmom , Donnie Darko , Saved! , Into the Wild , and Sucker Punch .Malone is...
), and Rocket's sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
). 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. Gorski encourages Babydoll to perform an erotic dance, during which Babydoll fantasizes she's in feudal Japan, meeting the Wise Man (Scott Glenn
Scott Glenn
Theodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...
). 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
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
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
Orc
An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien....
-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); and boarding a train and combating mechanized guards to disarm a bomb (mirrored by Rocket stealing a kitchen knife from the belt of the brothel'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 gentlemen. 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 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.
Cast
- Emily BrowningEmily BrowningEmily Jane Browning is an Australian film actress and fashion model, known for her roles as Violet Baudelaire in Brad Silberling's 2004 film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Anna Ivers in the 2009 film The Uninvited, as Babydoll in Zack Snyder's 2011 action thriller Sucker...
as Babydoll - Abbie CornishAbbie CornishAbbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
as Sweet Pea - Jena MaloneJena MaloneJena Malone is an American actress and musician who has appeared on television, in films, and on Broadway. She made her movie debut with the film Bastard Out of Carolina , and has appeared in films including Contact , Stepmom , Donnie Darko , Saved! , Into the Wild , and Sucker Punch .Malone is...
as Rocket - Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie
- Jamie ChungJamie ChungJamie Jilynn Chung is an American actress known to reality television audiences as a cast member on the MTV reality television series, The Real World: San Diego and its spin-off show, Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno II, and for her appearances in TV and films, such as I Now...
as Amber - Carla GuginoCarla GuginoCarla Gugino is an American actress known for her roles of Sally Jupiter in Watchmen, Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch, Lucille in Sin City, Amanda Daniels in seasons 3, 5 and 7 of Entourage, Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids film trilogy, and as the lead characters of the television series Karen Sisco...
as Madame Vera Gorski/Dr. Vera Gorski - Oscar IsaacOscar Isaac-Personal life:Isaac was born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother, Maria Estrada Nicolle, and a Cuban pulmonologist father, Oscar Gonzalo Hernandez. He was raised in Miami, Florida. While in Miami, he played lead guitar and sang vocals for his band "The Blinking Underdogs"...
as Blue Jones - Jon Hamm as the Doctor/The High Roller
- Scott GlennScott GlennTheodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...
as The Wise Man/The General/The Bus Driver - Gerard Plunkett as The Stepfather/Priest
Production
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 WatchmenWatchmen (film)
Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
first. The film was co-written with Steve Shibuya, who is the author of the original score that the story is based on. Snyder directed and produced with his wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder
Deborah Snyder
Deborah Snyder is an American producer of feature films and television commercials. She is married to filmmaker Zack Snyder, and has worked as his frequent producing partner on films such as Watchmen and 300...
, through their Cruel and Unusual Films
Cruel and Unusual Films
Cruel and Unusual Films, Inc. is an American production company that was established in 2004 by filmmaker Zack Snyder, his wife Deborah Snyder, and their producing partner Wesley Coller.-Company:...
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
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
live screening of Watchmen for Comic-Con
Comic-Con
Comic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
, he handed out t-shirts for Sucker Punch featuring the first art for the film. The art was designed by Alex Pardee
Alex Pardee
Alex Pardee is a freelance artist, apparel designer, and a writer born in Antioch, California, USA who is best known for illustrating The Used's album artwork...
of Snafu Comics
Snafu Comics
PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi is a manga series.The comic is a crossover of sorts based on the American animated television series The Powerpuff Girls, though finding Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup slightly older and now going to school in a fictional neighboring city of Townsville known as Megaville...
. with title art work by Los Angeles graffiti artist Galo Canote. Pre-production began in June 2009 in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Snyder had also added that he enjoyed the freedom of filming his own original script. Photographer Clay Enos
Clay Enos
Clay Enos is a photographer.Enos was the set still photographer on the film adaption of Watchmen. Part of that work resulted in "Watchmen Portraits" published in February 2009 by Titan Books....
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 300300 (film)
300 is a 2007 American fantasy action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. It is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant...
, so I'm doing the opposite end of the spectrum."
Snyder had tapped Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress, singer-songwriter and former child model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11, and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on As the World Turns and All My...
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
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
, Evan Rachel Wood
Evan Rachel Wood
Evan Rachel Wood is an American actress and singer. She began her acting career in the late 1990s, appearing in several television series, including American Gothic and Once and Again...
, 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
Big Love
Big Love is an American television drama that aired on HBO between March 2006 and March 2011. The show is about a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah that practices polygamy...
. 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
True Blood
True Blood is an American television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana...
and her stage production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a rock musical with music and lyrics by U2's Bono and The Edge and a book by Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. The musical is based on the Spider-Man comics created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, published by Marvel Comics, as well as the 2002...
. 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 AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and continued through filming. The main women in the film were told to deadlift
Deadlift
The deadlift is a weight training exercise where a loaded barbell is lifted off the ground from a stabilized, bent over position. It is one of the three canonical powerlifting exercises, along with the squat and bench press.-Overview:...
up to 210 pounds (95.3 kg) for their roles. Damon Caro, the stunt coordinator from 300
300 (film)
300 is a 2007 American fantasy action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. It is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant...
and Watchmen
Watchmen (film)
Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
, 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
Beastly (film)
Beastly is a 2011 romantic fantasy film loosely based on Alex Flinn's 2007 novel of the same name. It is a retelling of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast set in modern-day New York City. The film is written and directed by Daniel Barnz and stars Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer.The plot focuses...
. Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
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
Bourne (film series)
The Bourne films are a series of dramatic films based on the character Jason Bourne, a former CIA assassin suffering from extreme memory loss, created by author Robert Ludlum. All three of Ludlum's novels were adapted for the screen, featuring Matt Damon as the titular character in each...
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 VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
in July. Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
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
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. 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
Rick Carter
Rick Carter is an American production designer and art director. He is known for his work in the film Forrest Gump, which earned him an Oscar nomination, as well as numerous nominations of other awards for his work in Amistad and A.I. Artificial Intelligence...
served as production designer while the visual effects of the film were done by Animal Logic
Animal Logic
Animal Logic is an Australian digital visual effects company based at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia and Santa Monica, California. Established in 1991, Animal Logic's core business has traditionally been the design and production of high-end visual effects for commercials and television programs,...
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
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
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:Andrew O'Hehir, writing in Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, sees the film's title its essential theme:
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
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 BatesTyler Bates
Tyler Bates is a music producer and composer for films. His most known work includes "The Hangman's Song" and various other tracks from the zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead, and 2008's Day of the Dead...
said that the songs "function as the subconscious mind of Baby Doll and her journey", and musical producer Marius de Vries
Marius de Vries
Marius Van Wyk de Vries is an English music producer and composer. He has been behind some of the key albums and soundtracks of recent times, gathering five Grammy nominations, two BAFTAs, and an Ivor Novello award along the way.-Music Producer:...
considered "an important task of the songs to signplace 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!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...
, according to Snyder. Dance choreography was spearheaded by Paul Becker
Paul Becker
Paul Becker is a Canadian actor and choreographer.- Career :Becker choreographed the first season of the CW series Hellcats, Sucker Punch, This Means War, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2 and an episode of Human Target....
. Emily Browning did the vocals for the songs Sweet Dreams and Where Is My Mind that are played during the movie. Carla Gugino
Carla Gugino
Carla Gugino is an American actress known for her roles of Sally Jupiter in Watchmen, Dr. Vera Gorski in Sucker Punch, Lucille in Sin City, Amanda Daniels in seasons 3, 5 and 7 of Entourage, Ingrid Cortez in the Spy Kids film trilogy, and as the lead characters of the television series Karen Sisco...
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
Jamie Chung
Jamie Jilynn Chung is an American actress known to reality television audiences as a cast member on the MTV reality television series, The Real World: San Diego and its spin-off show, Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno II, and for her appearances in TV and films, such as I Now...
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
Tyler Bates
Tyler Bates is a music producer and composer for films. His most known work includes "The Hangman's Song" and various other tracks from the zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead, and 2008's Day of the Dead...
(who composed all of Snyder's previous live-action films) and Marius de Vries
Marius de Vries
Marius Van Wyk de Vries is an English music producer and composer. He has been behind some of the key albums and soundtracks of recent times, gathering five Grammy nominations, two BAFTAs, and an Ivor Novello award along the way.-Music Producer:...
(who composed the score for the film Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...
) wrote the film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
. The official trailers contain samples from the songs "Prologue" by Immediate Music
Immediate Music
Immediate Music is a music composition company based in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, that is notable for providing a specialized library of high-end trailer music for commercial motion pictures. Since 1992, Immediate Music has licensed music from its library to hundreds of theatrical trailers and...
, "Crablouse" by Lords of Acid
Lords of Acid
Lords of Acid is a Belgian-American post-industrial/techno band, led by musician Praga Khan. They debuted with the controversial new beat single "I Sit on Acid" in 1988...
, "When the Levee Breaks
When the Levee Breaks
"When the Levee Breaks" is a blues song written and first recorded by husband and wife Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. The song is in reaction to the upheaval caused by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927....
" by Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, "Tomorrow Never Knows
Tomorrow Never Knows
"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver but the first to be recorded. Credited as a Lennon–McCartney song, it was written primarily by John Lennon...
" by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, "And Your World Will Burn" by Cliff Lin, "Panic Switch
Panic Switch
"Panic Switch" is a song by the American indie rock band Silversun Pickups. It was the first single released from the group's second album, Swoon , on March 17, 2009. The song reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, becoming their first number-one single on any Billboard chart...
" by the Silversun Pickups
Silversun Pickups
Silversun Pickups is an alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2002. The band comprises Brian Aubert, Nikki Monninger, Christopher Guanlao, and Joe Lester....
, and "Illusion of Love" (Fred Falke
Fred Falke
Frédérick "Fred" Falke is a French based house producer and DJ of German origin.Falke started out as a bass player around 1995 before turning his hand to production work in the late 1990s...
remix) by Uffie
Uffie
Anna-Catherine Hartley , better known by her stage name Uffie , is a Paris-based underground electronic musician, rapper, fashion designer and socialite signed to French electronic music record label Ed Banger Records. She has been described as a muse for French DJs, and is known for working with...
.
Sucker Punch: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on March 22, 2011 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
Alison Mosshart
Alison Nicole Mosshart is an American singer, songwriter and occasional model best known as the lead vocalist for the indie rock band The Kills and blues rock band The Dead Weather. She started her musical career in 1995 with the Florida punk rock band Discount which disbanded in 2000...
, Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
, Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, and performances from stars Emily Browning, Carla Gugino, and Oscar Isaac.
Marketing
Sucker Punch participated in the Comic-ConComic-Con
Comic-Con, Comic Con or ComiCon may refer to any of the following Comic book conventions, none of them affiliated to any other:*San Diego Comic-Con International, annual fan convention in San Diego held since 1970, also known as Comic-Con or San Diego Comic-Con*Dallas Comic Con, annual fan...
2010 and showed the first footage of the film, featuring the songs "Prologue" by Immediate Music
Immediate Music
Immediate Music is a music composition company based in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, that is notable for providing a specialized library of high-end trailer music for commercial motion pictures. Since 1992, Immediate Music has licensed music from its library to hundreds of theatrical trailers and...
and "The Crablouse" by Lords of Acid
Lords of Acid
Lords of Acid is a Belgian-American post-industrial/techno band, led by musician Praga Khan. They debuted with the controversial new beat single "I Sit on Acid" in 1988...
. The trailer was released on Tuesday July 27 on Apple Trailers. The second official trail was released on Wednesday November 3 and was attached to Due Date
Due Date
Due Date is a 2010 American comedy road film directed by Todd Phillips, co-written by Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, and Adam Sztykiel, and starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. The film was released on November 5, 2010...
, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, and Black Swan
Black Swan (film)
Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis. Its plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet by a prestigious New York City company. The production requires a ballerina to...
.
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.
Critical reception
Sucker Punch received generally poor critical reviews; the movie rating site Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that only 23% of 194 critics have given the film positive reviews, giving it an average rating of 4/10. Additionally, the film holds a 33 out of 100 on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, 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
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
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
Orlando Sentinel
The Orlando Sentinel is the primary newspaper of the Orlando, Florida region. It was founded in 1876. The Sentinel is owned by Tribune Company and is overseen by the Chicago Tribune. As of 2005, the Sentinel’s president and publisher was Kathleen Waltz; she announced her resignation in February 2008...
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
Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin is an American film and music critic. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rabin was the first head writer for The A.V. Club, a position he continues to hold today....
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
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
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
Moviefone
Moviefone is an American-based movie listing and information service. Moviegoers can obtain local showtimes, theatre information, film reviews, or advance tickets...
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
Michael Phillips (critic)
Michael Phillips is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; the San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald....
of The Chicago Tribune stated that "Zack Snyder must have known in preproduction that his greasy collection of near-rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
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
Sexual objectification
Sexual objectification refers to the practice of regarding or treating another person merely as an instrument towards one's sexual pleasure, and a sex object is a person who is regarded simply as an object of sexual gratification or who is sexually attractive...
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
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
described the film as a "fantasia of misogyny" that pretends to be a "feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
fable of empowerment" and found that the film's treatment of sexual violence was problematic. Peter Debruge of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
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."
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 RulesDiary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (film)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is a 2011 comedy film based on Jeff Kinney's book of the same name. The film stars Zachary Gordon and Devon Bostick. Robert Capron, Rachael Harris, Steve Zahn, and Peyton List also have prominent roles...
. 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.