Sucker Punch has Moulin Rouge's freewheeling disrespect for genre, cramming dragons, zombie steampunk World War I German soldiers, robotic samurai, military helicopters, and gun-toting, scantily clad superbabes into a series of hyperviolent fantasies that spring from the undulations of a schizoid madhouse inmate. Sucker Punch also has The Matrix's disdain for the laws of physics, as svelte young women in tight clothes leap, spin, twirl, kick, and crash in slow-motion spectacles that only vaguely resemble how bodies actually move in space. On top of that, Sucker... Punch has a video game's disinterest in characters, narrative, sensible dialogue, or sense of any kind, really--anything that might get in the way of the next spasm of bullets and sword slashes. A troubled girl nicknamed Baby Doll (the preposterously glossy Emily Browning, whose china-doll looks previously appeared in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events), traumatized by her impending lobotomy, reimagines her asylum as a hybrid cabaret/brothel. She and her just as whimsically monikered fellow inmates (played by Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, and Jamie Chung) use their feminine wiles and some kick-ass gyrations to escapeĀ but things go very, very wrong. The relentless eye-candy comes from director Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300), whose interest in decorative grime and glistening skin seems to short-circuit everything else. But there's no denying that eye-candy does abound. Also featuring Scott Glenn in the Yoda-esque role of "Wise Man." --Bret Fetzer [show more]
Sucker Punch is, for all intents and purposes, the lovechild of a video game and music video. Don't be fooled into thinking there is any artistic worth in the movie, nor that anyone ever intended there to be in the first place. This is Zack Snyder's love letter to a visual medium without meaning or depth. What you see on the surface is what you'll get for the entire movie. Arguably he's created a whole new genre - think what Hostel and Saw are to 'torture porn,' and perhaps Sucker Punch could be the first 'action porn' movie. Scantily clad women, loud music, explosions and weapons a plenty fill the screen minute by minute, and you'll either love it or hate it.
Snyder has a history of the bombastic and the visceral. His debut with the Dawn Of The Dead remake was a risky move that generally paid off better than most Horror remakes, bringing it slap bang into the present with running zombies and a noisy soundtrack. This was certainly in stark contrast to the original. After Dead's success, Snyder moved on to what can probably be seen as the forerunner to Sucker Punch, an adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book series 300. The movie became notorious for its unique visual style, and put Zack on the map as someone to watch. Yet many of the same criticisms of Sucker Punch were thrown around years before with 300.
It's not that Sucker Punch is a bad idea; it's more that its development is meaningless, and it never quite rises above the flesh of the lead women. Warner Bros. went forward with the production due to the success of Snyder's Watchmen, another comic book-based movie. Without such rich source material, Sucker Punch suffers immensely. There may be suggestions of the movie being a lesson on the objectification of women, but I think that's giving those involved far too much credit. It never once feels like a moral story, never quite giving the redemption or understanding that you think MIGHT be coming. Yes, Snyder manages to do all the groundwork of a terrible and disgusting tale, and yet he seemingly forgets to truly drive home the point at the end. Without giving any spoilers away, I felt completely empty by the end of the movie, asking myself if that was really it.
I find it hard to critique the cast of the movie, as none of the roles are particularly challenging. Actresses like Jena Malone, star of such mentally challenging movies as Donnie Darko, are suddenly reduced to pointless eye candy. Even the lead Emily Browning as Babydoll deserves far better than what she is given. I'm all for the occasional action movie where you turn your brain off and enjoy the car crashs, explosions, and you don't need to think about what anyone is doing, but Sucker Punch manages to do this while offending each person in the audience. There's absolutely no need for the fetish, the suggestive underage sexuality, or prostitution etc. It adds nothing to the very limited story that Snyder delivers, and it's not a message that can be delivered seriously with crazy editing and music you're more likely to hear on a night out. Is that really the message we want to be sending people?
I don't offend easily. I've seen A Serbian Film, Martyrs, and far too many other disgusting movies to even want to admit, but I never once felt ANY of them were insulting my intelligence. No matter how wrong I felt they were, I at least believed that the filmmakers made a slight effort at least to drive home a warning message. Zack Snyder doesn't even bother trying. To him, this is a fantasy movie with a complete mess of a plot, and he doesn't care. He feels sticking beautiful women in skimpy outfits for a couple of hours shooting guns to music is enough to keep anyone amused. He's sadly wrong. Yes, this may LOOK good on Blu-Ray, but that's the biggest compliment I can give it. There's no value in any repeat viewing, and you're just left hoping Snyder sticks to directing.
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'Watchmen' and '300' director Zack Snyder returns with this 1950s-set musical fantasy thriller. Due to the machinations of her evil stepfather, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) finds herself trapped in a mental institution, awaiting a lobotomy. Desperate to be free, she escapes into an alternate reality of her own making; a world full of warriors, weapons and weird, wondrous creatures, and where it is her mission to steal five objects in five days while being pursued by an unknown foe. As other inmates from the institution begin to appear in her fantasies, the differences between Baby Doll's two realities become less pronounced. Soon, she and her friends realise that what happens in this alternate world will influence events in the 'real' one. Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone and Jamie Chung co-star.
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