Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens… you get the picture
When Baby Doll tries to murder her drooling, abusive stepfather, she accidentally kills the angelic younger sister that she was trying to protect. She finds herself interred in an impossibly cold, creaking asylum; and locks herself away in an imaginary world to escape the pain. But as she moves around this alternate reality she quickly realises that she has jumped out of the frying pan and into the smoke-stained harem of a ruthless, sleazy pimp called Blue Jones. Fortunately, she discovers allies in the form of her alluring peers: Rocket, Sweet Pea, Blondie, and Amber.
Baby Doll decides to escape from the harem (and the asylum of her reality) with the help of her new accomplices. One essential part of her plan is to distract onlookers with her extraordinarily mesmerising dance routines; but in order to do this, she must remove herself to yet another plane of her imagination. It is this third and final plane that, one presumes, first got Zach Snyder’s juices flowing. It is an alternate reality that sees the burlesque girls dressed in all manner of military and “school girl” attire, brandishing heavy metal weapons and fighting everything from dragons to Nazi zombies. It is so far ‘over-the-top’ that I am amazed Snyder managed to keep it inside the Earth’s atmosphere for long enough to milk a few expensive Los Angeles lunches out of it.
The world will immediately judge this film with Snyder’s CV of comic book adaptations in mind; but this really has more in common with the disjointed stories and simple ‘level’ structures of early video games. The characters unlock new “worlds” and gather “tools” that will aid them in the final mission against the “big boss”. And with Hollywood’s recent myopic fascination with graphic novels, it is almost refreshing to see a filmmaker taking at least some inspiration from the aesthetic (but not the narrative) of retro video games.
Unfortunately, the video game vibe and bizarre fantasy world drown out what could have been an intriguing, noirish story of female teenage vengeance. There is something in the asylum/ harem stories that could have resulted in a fascinating film: a sort of Girl, Interrupted/ Sin City hybrid, with a gang of Lolitas tearing around a neo-noir dystopia reeking revenge on all the adults that have hurt them. But Snyder’s thirst for attention and dick-swinging enormity means that we spend far too much time stomaching the preposterous concoctions of Baby Doll’s deepest imagination instead.
The aesthetics of the film mirror this point perfectly. The first two levels are reminiscent of The Watchmen: using just the right amount of CGI to make the world feel fantastic and “graphic”, but permeating with enough reality to evoke the dirt and ageing smells of an asylum or harem. But when we are thrust into the final plane the CGI just feels tinny and weightless. When CGI is done well it can be an exciting and affecting tool, but when it is done badly it is a bore. It doesn’t matter how “big” the thing on screen is (an army of monsters, a burning cathedral, etc), it is too divorced from anything real to have any value: it is only so many pixels, and it is meaningless.
Emily Browning’s china Baby Doll is a pleasure to watch. Her quivering lip and watering eyes hide a terrifying capacity for calculated violence; she is a cross between a Happy Tree Friend and some darling tween heroine from a Nickelodeon cartoon. The other performances are half-etched: swaying between over-emotional and under-dressed, and usually merging the two.
One thing you cannot deny is the unflinching madness of Snyder’s idea. He isn’t apologising, stuttering or toning things down. As is often the case with this man, he is screaming at the top of his lungs, with a huge smile on his face.
When Baby Doll tries to murder her drooling, abusive stepfather, she accidentally kills the angelic younger sister that she was trying to protect. She finds herself interred in an impossibly cold, creaking asylum; and locks herself away in an imaginary world to escape the pain. But as she moves around this alternate reality she quickly realises that she has jumped out of the frying pan and into the smoke-stained harem of a ruthless, sleazy pimp called Blue Jones. Fortunately, she discovers allies in the form of her alluring peers: Rocket, Sweet Pea, Blondie, and Amber.
Baby Doll decides to escape from the harem (and the asylum of her reality) with the help of her new accomplices. One essential part of her plan is to distract onlookers with her extraordinarily mesmerising dance routines; but in order to do this, she must remove herself to yet another plane of her imagination. It is this third and final plane that, one presumes, first got Zach Snyder’s juices flowing. It is an alternate reality that sees the burlesque girls dressed in all manner of military and “school girl” attire, brandishing heavy metal weapons and fighting everything from dragons to Nazi zombies. It is so far ‘over-the-top’ that I am amazed Snyder managed to keep it inside the Earth’s atmosphere for long enough to milk a few expensive Los Angeles lunches out of it.
The world will immediately judge this film with Snyder’s CV of comic book adaptations in mind; but this really has more in common with the disjointed stories and simple ‘level’ structures of early video games. The characters unlock new “worlds” and gather “tools” that will aid them in the final mission against the “big boss”. And with Hollywood’s recent myopic fascination with graphic novels, it is almost refreshing to see a filmmaker taking at least some inspiration from the aesthetic (but not the narrative) of retro video games.
Unfortunately, the video game vibe and bizarre fantasy world drown out what could have been an intriguing, noirish story of female teenage vengeance. There is something in the asylum/ harem stories that could have resulted in a fascinating film: a sort of Girl, Interrupted/ Sin City hybrid, with a gang of Lolitas tearing around a neo-noir dystopia reeking revenge on all the adults that have hurt them. But Snyder’s thirst for attention and dick-swinging enormity means that we spend far too much time stomaching the preposterous concoctions of Baby Doll’s deepest imagination instead.
The aesthetics of the film mirror this point perfectly. The first two levels are reminiscent of The Watchmen: using just the right amount of CGI to make the world feel fantastic and “graphic”, but permeating with enough reality to evoke the dirt and ageing smells of an asylum or harem. But when we are thrust into the final plane the CGI just feels tinny and weightless. When CGI is done well it can be an exciting and affecting tool, but when it is done badly it is a bore. It doesn’t matter how “big” the thing on screen is (an army of monsters, a burning cathedral, etc), it is too divorced from anything real to have any value: it is only so many pixels, and it is meaningless.
Emily Browning’s china Baby Doll is a pleasure to watch. Her quivering lip and watering eyes hide a terrifying capacity for calculated violence; she is a cross between a Happy Tree Friend and some darling tween heroine from a Nickelodeon cartoon. The other performances are half-etched: swaying between over-emotional and under-dressed, and usually merging the two.
One thing you cannot deny is the unflinching madness of Snyder’s idea. He isn’t apologising, stuttering or toning things down. As is often the case with this man, he is screaming at the top of his lungs, with a huge smile on his face.
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