See, even though I'd call both movies "interesting failures", and even the positive reviews of both films call them deeply flawed, I don't think that a simple number ranking can summarize what's good or bad about these, or really any, films. That's the thing I don't like about sites like Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic. They don't give you any perspective or reasons why these films are getting a lot of good or bad reviews.
I don't think that looking at reviews before seeing a movie is a bad thing, but I personally like to find reviewers that I have similar tastes to, and then I like to see what it was they did or didn't like about the movie. For example, I've been reading Roger Ebert's reviews since they first went online, and I've read enough to know when he might be inserting his own personal bias into a review. He seems to grade certain actresses, like Jennifer Lopez, on a curve (no pun intended, I promise), and he seems to give more positive reviews to children's movies and documentaries. I can't blame him, he follows his heart, and other bodily organs, and that's what I like about him as a reviewer- he's not afraid to stand apart from the herd.
Take his review of At Long Last Love. At two and a half stars, it's technically a "thumbs down" review, and yet he spends a good portion of it baffled by the extreme negative reactions of the rest of the critical community.
I personally agree with him on a lot of his points- the movie is an homage to the comedy musicals of the 1930s, but while those movies had wafer-thin plots that served to showcase the singing and dancing talents of their stars, this one has a similarly insubstantial plot that showcases Bogdanovich's fetish for old movies. The jokes have a heavy layer of dust, and watching the stars attempt to imitate Astaire and Rogers is like watching a particularly sad night of celebrity karaoke. Burt Reynolds seems a lot more at home as a good ol' boy than he does here as an aristocrat, and Cypil Shepherd was probably cast mostly because she was dating the director.
However, there's still some shining moments to be found here. Madeline Khan turns in a typically good performance, managing to be sultry, innocent, and charming all at once, and a lot of the supporting actors are fun to watch, possibly because some of them are older, and had the chance to act in the kind of movie they're paying tribute to. And even with its clumsy musical numbers and miscast performances, the whole thing does manage to generate some of the energy of its predecessors.
I think it's entirely possible that the large number of scathing reviews comes down to timing and circumstance. Peter Bogdanovich had just come off the flop of the even more infamous Daisy Miller (also with a miscast performance by Cybil Shepherd), after four consecutive hits (Targets, The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc?, and Paper Moon). Bogdanovich began his career as a critic, and had managed to get his foot in the door as a director, and had parlayed his encyclopedic knowledge of movie history into some films that stand on their own as true classics (Paper Moon is my personal favorite- also on Instant View!). When his elaborate tributes to by-gone eras began to collapse under their own weight, isn't it possible that his former colleagues were perhaps a little to eager to preemptively start dancing on his grave?
Now, let's talk about Sucker Punch. This isn't so much an homage as a great big stew of geek culture tropes, with themes of female empowerment and exploitation thrown in for good measure. In fact, most of the reviews seem to hinge on which of those two themes the movie is actually about. There's this review from Twitch that comes down hard on the director himself, saying that the movie is straight exploitation. I would disagree with a lot of the points made in the review- yes, the girls all do go by stripper names, and they are scantily clad for pretty much the whole movie, but I think that this is because Zack Snyder has made a movie ABOUT the fact that we like watching movies where girls in short skirts kick copious amounts of ass.
On the other end of the spectrum, there's this review over at /Film that defends the movie, saying that it is about the line between exploitation and empowerment, and not merely exploitation itself. I think this reviewer reads some things into the film that aren't necessarily there on screen, but I think that it's a film worthy of this kind of interpretation, rather than the dismissal of the Twitch review.
Now, you probably have read all this way wanting to know what I myself thought of Sucker Punch. Here's what I think: there's a very personal vision on display here (this is Snyder's first original script, and the first he wrote himself), and I can't help but be reminded of two other very personal films. With it's cabaret setting, garish production design, and themes of feminine power on the stage, I thought of Moulin Rouge, and with it's multiple levels of reality whose consequences bled over into each other, I was reminded of Inception. Both of those movies had their directors' strengths on full display, and while I think Sucker Punch lacks both the sheer exuberance of the former and the intricate plotting and structure of the latter, I'm still impressed by the visual ambition on display, even if I think the themes are hard to discern from all the flash and dazzle.
There's another, mostly positive, review over at Badass Digest, calling it "thrilling, smart...and deeply flawed". But that quote that sticks out for me in the review is this:
"...to see Zack Snyder stretch the way he does here, going for big ideas and aiming at big themes, is exhilarating. I’d rather have filmmakers fail like this every day of the week than succeed in the way most do, by being bland and safe and stupid."
So, while the reviews may be dire, some movies are worth a look anyway. They may be failures, but, to paraphrase Buzz Lightyear, at least they're failures with style.
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