REVIEW: Sucker Punch

Dawn of the Dead.  300.  Watchmen.  The Owls of Ga'Hoole.   These are the four major films Zach Snyder has previously directed, and they all have something in common: they're adaptations.  300 and Watchmen were originally graphic novels, Ga'Hoole was inspired by a popular young adult book series, and Dawn of the Dead was, of course, based off of the 1978 original.  Snyder's unique visual style helped bring these adaptations to life onscreen in a way no one else could have.  His talent lies in presentation and adaptation, not original storytelling.  So what, you might ask, is Zach Snyder doing with a screenwriting credit in his latest film, Sucker Punch?  I'd like to know that myself right about now.

I can only assume this movie was named for what you want to do to the ticket vendor when you walk out of the theater.

On paper, Sucker Punch sounds like an ideal template for Snyder to work his slo-mo action magic: a young girl nicknamed Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is wrongly committed to an all-female insane asylum by her evil step-father, where she retreats into worlds of her own imagining in order to devise an escape plan.  The problem is, what could have been an intense exploration of the power of imagination turns out to be four incredible action set pieces that are each bookend-ed by coma-inducing exposition scenes that reach new levels of cinematic ineptitude.

What the movie trailers don't tell you about this film is that Baby Doll's imagination doesn't take her straight from the asylum into the action sequences that represent her escape.  Instead of imagining a world that makes her feel powerful and in control, Baby Doll mentally retreats from the asylum by imagining it to be a burlesque house where she and the other women are routinely whored out to patrons by the business's abusive owner (Oscar Isaac).  How exactly is being an unwillingly prostitute a better situation than being trapped in an insane asylum?  Sure doesn't seem like a comfortable daydream to me.  Snyder himself said that this film is an examination of female exploitation in a completely non-exploitative way.  I'm not even going to try and illustrate how many ways that isn't true.

Anyway, in this fantasy burlesque house, all the women are trained to perform sultry dances; when Baby Doll is forced to dance, we get treated to an Inception-esque shift into a second level of fantasy- Baby Doll's dance is represented by a snowy scene where she battles ten-foot-tall samurai warriors that wield gatling guns.  I kid you not.

Before the battle, Baby Doll is told by a mysterious old man her brain made up that she needs to collect four items to escape the asylum.  The rest of the movie follows this formula: Baby Doll "dances" (insert random action sequence here) to distract oafish asylum workers while the other girls steal the items she needs.  But wait... if the action scenes represent her dancing in the burlesque house, what does her dancing represent in the real-life asylum?

We hardly see anything about her actual life in the asylum- the entire "plot" unfolds in the burlesque house.  However, since that scenario isn't real, I didn't care about what happened to any of the characters.  Why couldn't the action scenes just be a symbol for what she did in the asylum itself?  Why did the burlesque house have to be in the movie at all?  Everything is overly complicated, especially considering that the dialogue is written with the subtlety of a... well, of a ten-foot-tall-gatling-gun-toting samurai. 

Yes, the action scenes are impressive and imaginative, and they wowed me in a way that cg effects hardly ever do anymore.  But with a director-written script as lazy, convoluted, and downright awful as Sucker Punch's, there's no reason to care about anything that's happening.  Thankfully, Zach Snyder's next film, Superman: Man of Steel, is a return to what he does best: riding to success on the shoulders of pre-existing intellectual properties.

REVIEW: Paul

Comedy writers Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have made a name for themselves spoofing popular movie genres with their zombie-comedy Shaun of the Dead and buddy-cop parody Hot Fuzz.  In Paul, the duo take on the science fiction/alien genre... or begin to, at least.  Within the first ten minutes of the film, British sci-fi nerd Graeme (Pegg) marvels at being in America and asks his friend Clive (Frost) "Can you believe we're really here?"  While Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were decidedly British in their comedic choices, Pegg and Frost claim they tried to give Paul a much more 'American' sensibility.  While there are a few good characters and plenty of great moments in the film, Paul is ultimately dragged down by its attempt to pander to a wider audience.

Paul focuses on Graeme and Clive's American road trip, which starts with Comic Con and is followed by visits to a series of UFO and conspiracy-theory hot spots.  Along the way, they witness a car crash and meet up with its driver, Paul (Seth Rogan): a down-to-earth extra-terrestrial on the run from government agents.  Rogan's delivery goes a long way in making his hitchhiking alien likable, and the computer animation that brings him to life isn't intrusive or noticeable.  Pegg and Frost have great chemistry onscreen as always, and Rogan's Paul makes an excellent third-party to their banter.

The movie is at its best when it's doing what it was conceived to do: spoof sci-fi and nerd culture.  Paul delights in mocking or playing along with plenty of alien stereotypes, and there's a great subplot about the ways he's secretly influenced pop-culture since his arrival several decades back.  It's the parts of Paul that try to capture 'American humor' that make it a less-than-impressive successor to Pegg and Frost's previous films.

Apparently, what it takes to be funny in America boils down to a few key comedic devices: penis jokes, homophobia, hillbilly Christians, and bucketfuls of pointless, nonsensical cursing.  A great deal of the humor is heavy-handed and obvious.  At one point, Paul gives Graeme's love-interest, Ruth (Kristen Wiig), advice on her haphazard swearing.  "You've got to pick your moments," he says.  The movie should have taken its own advice.  To make matters worse, Pegg and Frost's writing isn't nearly as tight and structured as usual.  In the final third of the movie at least three supporting characters make behavior shifts that don't make any sense at all.

Paul starts out strong with excellent acting, surprising cameos and supporting roles, as well as by cleverly spoofing a played-out genre.  I'm sure plenty of you will love this movie; just don't go in expecting the subtlety of Pegg and Frost's previous works.  It doesn't take long for the film to devolve into a stereotypical example of the crude status quo of American humor.

REVIEW: Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

This past Thursday I got in touch with my non-existent Irish side, celebrating St. Patrick's Day the old fashioned way: with plenty of Guinness.  My fiancee, a couple of friends, and myself settled  in for the night with a viewing of Boondocks Saints II: All Saints Day.  This sequel to the 1999 cult original was at first predicted to get stuck with a straight-to-DVD release.  However, it managed to make its way into theaters in 2009 and was immediately panned by both viewers and critics alike.  As a fan of the original, I avoided paying to see this in theaters.  I didn't want a shoddy and poorly-written sequel to ruin my perceptions of the first film (which, to be fair, is schlocky and gratuitous... but it's well-executed gratuitous schlock).  In the end, curiosity got the best of us, and we prepared ourselves for the worst as the opening credits rolled.

Erin go blugh.

Boondock Saints II finds the vigilante MacManus brothers (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) hiding out in Ireland with their father.  Almost immediately they discover that they've been framed for the murder of a Boston priest, and they return to the states to clear their name with a vengeance.   Flannery and Reedus are still a delight in their roles, and their banter throughout the film will please fans of the first film.  The movie makes many nods and winks at the original film, small rewards for fans willing to sit through this train wreck. 

 The thing that is most noticeable about Boondock Saints II is how hard it tries to be over-the-top through its dialogue and action scenes.  The first movie was edgy... this one is offensive and immersion-breaking.  The movie relies heavily on tired stereotypes, and many returning supporting characters appear seem like caricatures of their original iterations. To keep things interesting through the painful dialogue, we played a drinking game along with the film: take a drink every time an overtly sexist or racist comment/stereotype appeared onscreen.  I gave up on trying to keep pace halfway through the film. 

In the first film, the stylized, slow-mo action sequences were relatively believable: the MacManus brothers have to plan ahead, improvise, and are seriously injured in most of their fights.  In Boondock Saints II, the brothers seem simply immune bullets, standing out in the open and firing wildly around while the bullet-sponge thugs they battle die almost as soon as they appear onscreen.  There's no sense of danger or concern for the brothers watching the scenes.  Most of the bad guys don't even raise their guns before they crumple to the floor bleeding.

One of the best characters in the original was Paul Smecker (Willem Defoe).  In the sequel, the writers shoehorn in a "prodigy" student of Smecker's as his substitute in the film.  Eunice is played by Julie Benz, and her performance (particularly in her early scenes) hurts the film considerably.  Her southern drawl and attitude seem forced and unnecessary; she comes off as a weak attempt to add some sex appeal to the testosterone-heavy script.  One would assume that from a writing perspective the only reason to add in this character, instead of having Defoe simply reprise his role from the first film, would be because they couldn't get Defoe to sign on for the sequel.  However, Defoe inexplicably appears in the last scene of the movie, revealing that his death was a ruse and raising serious questions as to why writer/director Troy Duffy would leave him out of the rest of the film.


Boondock Saints II is a severe disappointment that tries too hard (and in all the wrong ways) to capture the spirit of its predecessor.  While there are some good moments between the MacManus brothers, the horribly inconsequential plot, focus on ancillary characters, and cringe-worthy writing make this movie not worth seeing.  For fans of the first film who have been wondering whether they should check out the sequel: don't.

Waiting for Superman

Well, spring break for my college was last week.  I spent the past seven days in St. Louis working on a service project, fixing up community gardens in disadvantaged neighborhoods and learning about a variety of social justice issues, including but not limited to human trafficking and the sorry, sorry state of America's educational system.  To kick off discussion of the latter issue, the City Lights project director hosted a screening of 2010's Waiting for Superman.  It's a challenging, polarizing, and convicting interpretation of what has gone wrong in America's schools, and what can be done to fix them.

 The film follows the lives of several young students in their families, detailing the issues they clash with trying to ensure their intellectual future.  The stories of these students are inter-cut with commentary on flawed mainstays in America's schools, such as the teacher tenure system and the 'tracking' system utilized by many school districts to assign high school courses via skill level.

The film advocates the philosophy of Charter Schools, which boast longer class times and focused curriculum, as an alternative to poor public schools or exclusive private schools.  As with any documentary, any attempt at impartiality is fruitless, and the film glazes over some important points held  onto by those of opposing opinions, and relies heavily on statics that may be affected by other factors.  However, Waiting for Superman brings to light many key issues about a problem that will only grow worse as time goes on: poverty and poor upbringing are less important factors in the declining education levels in America than commonly assumed.  In the end, those fighting over education aren't doing their best to benefit the people most affected by their squabbling: the students.

Regardless of your position on the issue of America's educational system, this is a well-made documentary with a lot of heart, and it accomplishes what any good documentary should: it instills a fervor in the viewer to want to learn more about the issue discussed and come up with their own conclusions.

The Longest Journey: Visual Dependence

I was a major bookworm during my K-12 schooling.  Now when I try and read something solely for pleasure, I find myself impatient, usually unable to hold my attention on the book for more than twenty minutes or so.  At first I thought this had to do with what sort of work I was doing in college.  Being an English and writing major, I tend to look more toward visual media such as movies, video games, and graphic novels for entertainment purposes.  The last thing I feel like doing after I finish my reading assignments is to pick up another book.

The more I think about it though, this impatience with written text seems to have something to do with the nature of the medium itself.  In many basic ways, books struggle to compete with the sensation of more visual media.  When you read a book, there are no visual depictions of what is playing out, you have to create them in your mind's eye.  You have to hear the voices of the characters in your head.  Movies, television, video games... they all eliminate the need for this sort of effort and imagination.  Your eyes and ears are bombarded with stimulation, easily achieving the instant gratification of being pulled into a story or world.  Experience an entire tale in two hours, not twenty.

Don't get me wrong: I love books, and I bemoan the onset of E-readers and other such devices that shift away from the classic paper-and-ink combo that has stimulated the minds of humanity for centuries.  The sad thing is, as technology improves we're conditioning ourselves to find literature less and less appealing.

What got me thinking about this actually doesn't have much to do with books at all.  However, I feel that this onset of technology hasn't just affected the way we experience books, but how we've been trained to experience storytelling itself. 

When I have free time, I'm always on the lookout for a good story, be it a book, movie, or game.  In high school, I stumbled across a TV show on the G4 network called CinemAddicts, which aired user-edited play-throughs of story-heavy video games.  Essentially, they would mash all of the game's cutscenes together into one big movie, with small bits of game-play left in to fill in the gaps.  One of these episodes focused on a game called Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.

  Once I found out the game was a sequel about ten minutes into the show I chose not to pay too much attention, even though I was interested.  I didn't want to ruin the original's story by watching part two.  Nevertheless, I filed Dreamfall away on my mental to-play list, thinking I'd look into it at a later date.

As it turns out, that "later date" was just two weeks ago, nearly four years later.  My memory of the game was jarred when I read a list of the top 10 female protagonists in video games.  April Ryan, star of the original game (The Longest Journey) was on the list.  I looked the game up on Steam, and got to playing.

Now, this game was originally released twelve years ago, during the holiday season of 1999.  The late 90's were a point of transition for many game developers.  In an attempt to do away with wall-of-text storytelling, the concept of having fully-voiced characters and cinematics was being experimented with more and more, pushing the boundaries of the technology and storage available at the time.

The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure game.  The game consists mostly of exploring the environment presented onscreen with your mouse, clicking on things in order to pick up objects, solve puzzles, or interact with characters.  The game is fully-voiced, but due to graphical limitations the character models do little more than gesture slightly with their arms or move their heads up and down when they speak. 

What this amounts to is that a vast majority of the game is spent listening to the story unfold while looking at mostly-static scenes:

Like so.

 I got really antsy playing this game.  I was pulled in by the story, but the presentation threw me off.  It wasn't visually-stimulating enough to hold my attention just with what was going on onscreen, and I almost always finished reading the subtitles far before the character finished delivering the line of dialogue.  I wasn't content sitting back and letting the voice actor finish reciting the line- I often went for the instant gratification, skipping past a character's line immediately after I finished reading it, forcing the narrative to move at a faster pace. 

I felt caught in a strange limbo of story experience: the scenes weren't compelling enough to sit there and watch, but were too short to warrant listening to while multitasking with some other activity.  I felt like I was cheating the voice actors by just reading the text and not listening to them deliver it... and so the only thing I could find to hold my attention on their delivery during longer scenes was to stand up and do some stretches while listening.

The story itself was rather fun and interesting, and April was a compelling character... but as with my inability to read contently for long periods of time nowadays, I found my attention drifting because the game wasn't fast-paced enough to compete with modern entertainment I've been trained to emotionally respond to.

I'm interested in getting around to playing Dreamfall and comparing the experience.  Dreamfall came out in 2006, boasting far fewer graphical limitations and a much more cinematic story presentation.  Something tells me I'll be a lot more engrossed.  And I'm a little ashamed.