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Zack Snyder Responds To Criticisms Of His Most Infamous Bomb, 12 Years Later-TGN

Summary

  • Director Zack Snyder reflects on the negative response to Sucker Punch, stating that the main criticism was that it was too exploitative.

  • Snyder defends the film, explaining that the action sequences were always meant to be more lyrical and blissful rather than tense and perilous.

  • Critics claimed that Sucker Punch prioritized style over substance and failed in its portrayal of female characters, and the film ended up being a major financial disappointment.

Sucker Punch director Zack Snyder opens up about the negative reactions to the film, now 12 years after its release. Hitting theaters in 2011, Sucker Punch is Snyder’s first film based off an original concept, with the director serving as co-writer alongside Steve Shibuya. The film stars Emily Browning as Babydoll, an institutionalized young woman who retreats to various alternate realities in which she and her companions are powerful fighters.

Now, during a recent interview with Letterboxd all about Snyder’s Sucker Punch, the director reflects on the response to the divisive film. The filmmaker explains what his intentions were for aspects of the movie that were particularly criticized, and defends Sucker Punch against claims that it’s “exploitative“. Check out Snyder’s full comment below:

“I feel like the main criticism of the film was that it was too exploitative. People took the movie as if the girls fighting and all that stuff was the movie. I found that slightly disheartening…

“Because the action was always dance-metaphor, right? And so the dance doesn’t necessarily have the same tension as a heist normally, but it’s in some ways a heist film too – they have to collect all the objects; that’s part of the genre. They have this mission where they have to collect these talismans and those talismans together equal the escape.

“For me, when I was working on the action sequences with Damon Caro, I was always like, ‘No, no. It should be more blissful. It should be more lyrical than tense.’ I’m not that concerned with the peril than I am with the bliss of the in-mind empowerment of what Babydoll is doing in the moment. The dance is her power. Her sexual power, her athletic power, her everything.

“Everything that’s empowered about the way she moves, that is seductive, that is the destroyer of worlds – she’s fully in it. So when she’s doing the action sequences, I wanted her to be unbeatable. I know in some ways it goes against the concept of action. It only fails in the final action sequence where Jenna gets stabbed – it’s the only time she’s vulnerable. And even then she’s able to kind of kick it back in a little bit with the combo of music.

“I was fascinated by this idea of music and movement and spectacle being the ultimate drug that is impossible to snap out of. Even just the ‘Love is the Drug’ sequence, where Oscar Isaac and Carla Gugino do their little dance number – it’s the most fun sequence in the movie because it’s literally a day in the life. It’s really setting the stage for the hierarchies of the place, which was a really fun way to render it. That’s kind of what they’re seeing when Baby Doll’s dancing normally.”

Why The Sucker Punch Reviews Were So Negative

Sucker Punch‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is currently the lowest of Snyder’s whole career, sitting at only 22%. The audience score of 47% is better, but not by much, and it’s also the lowest of the filmmaker’s career. Bad reviews aren’t always representative of box office performance, but in this case they are, with Sucker Punch making a dismal $89.8 million on an $82 million budget.

Sucker Punch‘s perceived failure in its portrayal of female characters was a central sticking point for many reviewers, especially given the film’s interest in exploring female empowerment, but so too was its style over substance. In its review, Variety called the film “fantasy fodder for 13-year-old guys” while The Hollywood Reporter says the movie is “a largely grim and unpleasant display of technical wizardry wrapped around a story that purports to be inspirational.” IndieWire‘s review is similarly harsh, summing up the movie as “all cool bullsh-t, no real meaning.”

Not all the reviews were as harsh as the ones above, but the general sentiment toward the film was clearly very negative. Snyder’s comment certainly helps to shed light on what his intentions were, but intention alone doesn’t always matter if the execution doesn’t convey them to audiences. The 2011 bomb has been reappraised somewhat in recent years, and it’s possible that Snyder’s planned Sucker Punch director’s cut will address the common complaints regarding the film and make his intentions more clear.

Source: Letterboxd