Sucker Punch

It's been a while since I've posted about a movie. The reasons surround a trip to Cuba and a few busy weeks at work. In that time I've seen a few fairly good movies. Some from last year such as Of Gods and Men and a few from this year which were various levels of decent. Nothing really worth posting about, however.

Out came the first real must see movie of 2011, Sucker Punch. It was visionary director Zack Snyder's follow up to The Watchmen. For me, Zack Snyder is a visionary only in the sense that he presumably has vision in one or both of his eyes. Nevertheless, the reviews intrigued me so I wanted to give it a whirl - plus it gave me a chance to check out the Ultraavx theatre at the Toronto Scotiabank Theatre.

First and foremost, the theatre. It is very loud, the screen is very big (although a little smaller than IMAX, although perhaps bigger than AMC IMAX) and very clear, and the seats are comfortable and recline slightly. If you have the opportunity, it is probably worth the extra 3 bucks. That, of course, assumes that a seeing a normal movie in theatres is worth 12 dollars to you, but I digress.

The opening of Sucker Punch is a little background to Baby Doll's life, which highlights the reason why she ends up in a mental institution in the first place. It is both aurally and visually stimulating as well as very well paced. It was a stunning start and had me hotly anticipating the rest of the movie.

It almost immediately fell off the rails. Without getting into too many details, the characters introduced in the mental institution are basically cyphers with the possible exception of Abbie Cornish's character Sweet Pea (it's obvious early on that she is the narrator). Motivations are generally non-existance and any realizations the characters come to throughout the movie come out of nowhere.

During the movie, Baby Doll uses her incredible gift of dance to arrest males to allow her cohorts to follow through with various aspects of her plan to escape. During these scenes, Baby Doll provides us with dream sequences to make the mundane task of stealing things like a meaningless lighter interesting. Unfortunately for most of the movie there aren't any stakes. Also, the dream sequences have all the CGI of a poor videogame so it's not particularly interesting to watch - for me anyhow.

All of this, combined with the lack of any real narrative, made the movie pretty boring, actually - which was pretty disappointing to be honest. I have more quibbles with the plot, the character arcs, and the stupid nature of the plan the girl came up with, but this should be enough to dissuade the collective you from seeing it. It isn't a spectacularly bad movie, just a bit disappointing, kind of boring, with nothing very important to say (even if it thinks that it does).

The girls are pretty though...

Marketing

I was having a conversation with my roommate about Public Relations and who's responsibility it is in relation to the life of a movie. That got me thinking. How powerful is marketing, and how great of an effect does it have in how big of an audience a movie has.

A little background, I have a Bachelor of Commerce (also went to film school, but that is neither hither nor yon) where I majored in marketing. I know all of the buzz words and I know the math involved with market research, but I'm not really clear on it's effect?

It clearly has some effect. Take a movie like The Hangover. It doesn't have any recognizable stars (Bradley Cooper wasn't the name that he is now, Zack was still a highly respected but little known stand-up comedian, and Ed Helms was the dude from The Daily Show). Yet somehow it made 44 million opening weekend. I have no research on hand to back this up, but Marketing seems like it would have the GREATEST effect on opening weekend. Sure, the movie was good, but who knew it at that point? It went on to make serious bank at the box office because it was funny, but that was a heck of a head start and really got the word of mouth off with a bang.

The thing is, it was rolled out at Colleges and Universities. Did THAT word of mouth create buzz and boost the opening weekend? Marketing reaches more people easier, but is it really effective? What would happen if a distribution company put 50 million in marketing toward Winters Bone, and cut a kick-ass (if misleading) trailer to boot? Does it pull in 30 or 40 million opening weekend?

I suppose if I knew the answer to this I'd be a very rich man. I am, however, starting to wonder what effect marketing has if studios are constantly relying in known quantities to boost box office dollars. Any idiot can market a new iteration of Spiderman. All you need is a big billboard and a couple prime time TV spots and you get a quick 80 million. After this, the movie largely relies on the quality of the movie and word of mouth. Sure a few dollars of marketing would help keep the movie on the mind of the public, but that really is minimal.

Movies like Inception have known actors and directors that can sell a movie. I think the real case study is something like The Hangover. I'm very interested in the answer if someone has one!