Sucker Punch (Extended Cut)

For a film filled with almost nothing but young women dressed in various examples of fetish wear, Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch goes out of its way to needle viewers who expect an uninterrupted leer. Snyder's 2011 release, co-written with Steve Shibuya, tells the tale of Emily Browning's Babydoll, a waif committed to a mouldering mental institution following the death of her mother and the murder of her little sister by a salivating Stepfather. Hoping to net himself his ward's inheritance, this ogre schedules Babydoll for a lobotomy, bribing Oscar Isaac's hunched orderly to forge the necessary documents. Trapped and bereaved, Babydoll begins to disassociate from her grim surroundings, imagining herself first as a virginal prize in a burlesque brothel then as a sword-wielding hero, crashing through waves of mechanical, masculine, aggressors.

Seen here in an extended cut that runs eighteen minutes longer than the theatrical presentation, this home video re-issue restores a level of bite that the American ratings board felt strayed beyond the remit of the PG-13 certificate. One long song and dance sequence aside, the majority of these version longue additions are the opposite of titillation. Instead we have harsh, threatening moments or bitter dialogue tweaks that underline the lack of actual, real-world, power these dozing superheroines possess. The manipulative rhetoric of Isaac's Blue, elevated from creepy hospital attendant to a glittering mobster in Babydoll's delusions, strikes a nastier chord in this edit. The mealy-mouthed platitudes of an unsuccessful pimp are subbed out for statements that anchor his desire for these women in something genuinely sinister. He wants to dominate them; to hurt them and have them love him in spite of this violence. 

With days left before her frontal lobe is rendered dull, Babydoll enlists the other inmates to mount an escape, determining a list of keys that must be acquired - simple items like a kitchen knife or a lighter. These objects, lent scale by the sheer desperation felt by these women, are magnified into incredible treasures that form the basis of action interludes that break with an otherwise impoverished existence. Babydoll has something of the siren about her, able to command male attention then generate enormous, impenetrable, fictions with nothing but a listless swaying. The asylum's men are enraptured, their brains numbed, allowing Babydoll and her accomplices - Jena Malone's Rocket, Vanessa Hudgens' Blondie, Jamie Chung's Amber and Abbie Cornish's Sweet Pea - to slip away to their battlegrounds. Unencumbered by reality, Snyder is able to motor through his varied and fantastical influences, matching flying fortresses against dragons or firing schoolgirl assassins at undead, steam-powered Alleyman. Sucker Punch is a melting pot massacre; Métal hurlant by way of the copyright flouting Daicon Opening Animation shorts.  

Spring Breakers

A group of girls, currently too cash poor to escape their dreary university campus, turn to armed robbery to fund a holiday. Once at the beach their days become a Bacchanalian blow out; a bright, poppy, pocket life devoid of their usual humdrum responsibilities or even a less exciting downtime. Everything feeds into their nonstop party. One of the girls talks about this goof-off in terms of it being a religious experience. Squashed in next to dozens of boozed up kids is the closest she's ever felt to God. Her life is finally how she always imagined it should be: a never-ending MTV beach party. The girls repeat "spring break" over and over like a monastic chant, attempting to conjure up the privileged, commodity centered American dream they've been sold all their lives.

Eventually the situation sours when the group come into the orbit of Alien, a smoked-out Cribs criminal, obsessed with living out his own idea of success - in this case, an existence straight out of a gangster rap album track. Two of the girls recoil from this adjustment then flee, leaving their less squeamish friends to form a polyamorous relationship with Alien based on a mutual love of automatic weapons and Britney Spears pop ballads. Equality is maintained both by the girl's refusal to be submissive arm candy and their willingness to participate in the ridiculous dynastic struggle Alien has wished into being. Ultimately, Spring Breakers seems to be about the second acts middle-class white Americans are allowed to have. Regardless of the mistakes they make, they have the financial and psychological resources to instantly put their past behind them to slot back into mainstream society. For them, consequences are abstract and temporary. Everyone else gets to die poor.