Popingay

Sucker Punch: A Pop Culture Fantasia

There’s only one other way to describe Sucker Punch: an orgasm for the eyes. In my heart of hearts, I’ve been waiting for a movie like this to happen for years, and I didn’t even know it. It worships at the metafictional altar of pop culture, and forgoes traditional plot and story development in favour of a multi-faceted referentially hyperactive pop art explosion that draws poignant parallels between the unreality in the film, and the unrealities we escape to in our very own cultural imagination. And they say my English degree taught me nothing.

Easily dismissed by the casual observer as a mishmash of so-called geek bait, Sucker Punch really takes a pop culture nerd’s every love and puts them all into a movie at the same time. Seriously. It has schoolgirl outfits, zombies, robots, dragons, samurai swords, guns, martial arts, mechas, castles, steampunk, orcs, bombs, explosions, burlesque, an insane asylum, and hookers. So. Many. Hookers. I didn’t know where next to look. Every possible pop culture trope that excites me in a way usually only reserved for moments the police tell me to keep in the privacy of my own home was there.

But what’s the point? The film rests on an arguably basic storyline with a nice little misdirect and twist ending that features limited character development. Its visual effects are a stunning cavalcade of video games, anime, action movies, and referential material. I mean, one of the battlegrounds was direct nod to Lord of the Rings. But is it enough to toss away as a self-indulgent film created seemingly by taking every focus group’s results for a free association exercise on the word “cool”? No. Absolutely not.

Sucker Punch’s brilliance rests in its metafiction, its self-aware referential style that ties all its scattered parts into one frenetic action-packed adventure. The film is all about unreality; forget about suspending your disbelief, Sucker Punch abandons the notion of reality at the door. It neatly dodges the question by framing the film in the psyches of insane asylum patients, and the ways they blend imagination and fantasy to escape from their bleak realities. But Sucker Punch goes one step further, and knowingly blends its parade of references to question the way we do the same via pop culture (maybe some—geeks—more than others).

It’s inarguable that Sucker Punch was made to attract the eye of geeks of all walks (e.g., video game, anime), but its greatest value is for those nerdy scholars of pop culture (read: people who spend way too much time watching TV, and claiming it means something [i.e., me]) for whom it takes a uniquely multidimensional role.

But for everyone, it’s definitely an enjoyable movie. It really does have something for everyone. By having one of everything. And it definitely merits a second, more critical viewing for me now that I’m done squealing like a hyperactive squirrel orgasm every time something new catches my eye.

Bravo, Zach Snyder, for an intellectually stimulating movie wrapped up in a colourful fracas deserving of its namesake, and thank you for making this little pop culture dork the happiest boy in all the land.

[4.5/5]