Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Oscar Isaac, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Scott Glenn, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm
Plot: Babydoll (Browning) is a young girl who is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather. By retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the mental facility.
Zack Snyder likes his visuals, in fact he likes his visuals so much he made an entire movie completely centred around them and that film is 'Sucker Punch'. Yes, the director of the upcoming 'Superman: Man of Steel earlier this year with this teenager boy fantasy film that was supposed to have exhilarating effects, sexy ladies shooting guns, steam powered Nazis, an insane asylum and dragons. There is only one problem they don't quite all fit together and a lot if doesn't make sense.
Snyder is excellent at visual film making, but more often than not his films don't have much heart or soul - they are usually quite cold. Stupid is a word that springs to mind with Snyder's films, '300' certainly was and a great majority of 'Sucker Punch' unfortunately falls under that category as well. After 'Watchmen' (which I really enjoyed) I thought he would be able to follow it up with a fantastic action movie - but during the film I was majorly disappointed and above all bored
The opening was very promising as we see a glimpse of Snyder at his best using just visuals to set up the story with Babydoll (Browning) accidentally killing her sister in an attempt to save her from their evil step father. This leads to him putting Babydoll in an insane asylum where she will be lobotomised. Up to this point the movie was simple to understand and thoroughly enjoyable, but then something strange happens. Suddenly we go inside Babydoll's brain as just she is about to be lobotomised and we are transported to a burlesque bar where all the occupants of the asylum are workers there. It is initially very jarring but it intrigued me.
We then stay in this fantasy world with Babydoll and fellow patients Sweet Pea (Cornish), Rocket (Malone), Blondie (Hudgens) and Amber (Chung) who hatch a plan to escape the clutches of sinister owner Blue (Isaac). It should be as simple as that, but Snyder adds in more fantasy worlds every time Babydoll does a dance that is so seductive that everyone becomes distracted, allowing the other girls to further the escape plan. It is slightly confusing and feels completely unnecessary, as it almost stops the movie dead when for no apparent reason we go inside Babydoll's brain again but this time a place where she meets the Wise Man (Glenn) who tells her what she must do to escape. He says they need a map, fire, a knife, a key and a mystery. She says "OK" then fights big monster ninjas with machine guns for no reason other than it looks cool.
This stupid dance fantasy thing is what completely destroys the movie as it seems Snyder just wanted a way of cramming as much crap onto the screen as possible as he throws dragons, undead Nazis, scantily clad women and explosions at you. Normally I wouldn't complain but it makes no sense and there is no danger inside these worlds because it is just fantasy. The real danger is in the burlesque bar where things make much more sense and there is more direction. In the dragon world and WWI world there is no threat to the characters because what they are doing doesn't hurt them until the writers decide "Oh yeah, something needs to happen to the girls that actually effects them, so we will make this hurt them but another thing have no effect".
I'm sure just this review is confusing because it is hard to translate what happens into a comprehensible description. It's just so damn stupid.If it stuck to one fantasy level (i.e. the burlesque bar) and got rid of the dragons it would have been so much of more an enjoyable experience, but instead it's a world with no consequence where things just happen. The action is cool but it doesn't mean anything when you are supposed to care about these characters but you quite simply don't because it is just so ridiculous.
I hate to complain about this movie so much because I did enjoy parts of it. Most of the performances were pretty terrible (Browning, Chung and especially Hudgens), but Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone were good as sisters determined to stick together and Oscar Isaac hams it up as the girls evil boss making a very despicable villain. Also as previously mentioned the visuals are stunning, if meaningless at times and it has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack with covers of 'Sweet Dreams', 'Where is My Mind?' and 'Search and Destroy' being stand outs. The soundtrack might be my favourite thing about 'Sucker Punch'.
The ending was quite a good resolution to what was at times a torturous experience as Snyder reveals why the film is called 'Sucker Punch' which isn't quite as clever as he thinks it is, but none the less a satisfying conclusion to an otherwise unsatisfying movie.
All in all 'Sucker Punch' from my point of view at least has be seen as a failure. Snyder clearly had so many ideas swimming around in his head that he tried to cram them all into one film and it unfortunately didn't work, for me at least. He has to admired however for trying something new and different, it's just a shame it wasn't crafted in a more measured way.I can't recommend 'Sucker Punch' because it is just mind numbingly awful in parts, but it is certainly unique and who knows there may be an underlying meaning we are yet to discover. The next 'Vertigo' maybe?
Rating:
No comments:
Post a Comment