Zack Snyder has built himself a impressively successful career thus far. He slipped almost quietly through the back door with his remake of Dawn of the Dead (it didn't yet have that “Zack Snyder” stamp) but made people really stop and pay attention when he brought us the macho action-fest that was 300. Then he delivered what is likely the most slavishly faithful adaptation of a comic ever made, the dense and striking Watchmen. And his last film, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, was a misfire on so many levels.
Now Snyder is back with yet another big budget, highly stylized film with Sucker Punch, bringing his undoubtedly unique style to a plot that, unlike all of his previous films, isn't based on any previous source material. So does Snyder deliver the goods once more? In a way he does but only if you're looking for visuals and nothing more. This time around Snyder's hyper-active style actually hinders the film as a whole, with a relentless blur of admittedly gorgeous visuals not really serving much purpose and, as a result of the evidently random way the action and visuals crops up, the film is curiously unmemorable.
The story follows a 20-year-old woman, nicknamed Baby Doll (for some reason...), who, after the death of her mother, accidentally kills her little sister while trying to murder her stepfather. As a result her stepfather has her committed to a mental institution, ultimately left to the hands of one of the men who work their who use her and the rest of the inmates to make money off of men who pay to see them “perform.”
Baby Doll - alongside other inmates with names like Amber, Sweet Pea, Blondie and Rocket – decide they want to escape from their prison, with the help of some very wild imagination leading them to require specific items (a map, fire, a knife, a key) in order to escape.
Sucker Punch's initially intriguing premise unfortunately doesn't have enough there to back it up. The film sets up a framework for which the action is to take place i.e. in the imagination of Baby Doll and the rest of the escapees but the film doesn't play by its own rules - it doesn't play fair. Little makes sense and the whole thing doesn't hold together as it should. It may seem silly to say that a fantasy story doesn't make sense as that's ultimately part of the point. But even a fantasy film has to make sense within its own world and here there are serious issues in that department.
.jpg?t=20130517094513)
Article comments
1 - ed
Amazing to me just how naive and willfully narrow-minded those in the media choose to be. The number 1 comedy in Amercia ( or close, not sure because I don't watch the brainless programming on Fox or any other network) is about a low-life womanizing addict who runs a half-way house for his equally stunted brother and child; this is allegedly charming and witty. Amazing that critics who are feeding their families by supporting this and other exploitation mediums/products ( ie most "romantic" comedies, anything on the CW, reality tv, Adam Sandler movies, Matt McConnaghey movies, magazine racks at the store, most video games, really it's everything we see and hear) didn't stop to listen to what Snyder was saying or realize the daring brilliance in baiting the audience withe fetish based objectification so prominant in the entertainment industry and our daily lives. Brittany Spears launched a career based on teasing the idea of statutory rape. See any current or ex-Disney starlet and how popular they are with people twice their age and you'll see the message and purpose of Sucker Punch. You were supposed to feel uncomfortable. The objectification of women (especially age 15-30) is an emotional imprisonment; from skinny jeans to Victoria's Secret. EVERY woman has experienced the power she wields with her sexuality and every women has used the that to feel powerful and gain the upper hand on the prison guard, sometimes simultaneously. Sometimes simultaneoulsy loathing and enjoying it. If you don't know that then you might know the one your with as well as you think. Sucker Punch is mindless, challenging, thought provoking and threatening all in one breath and Snyder should be applauded for daring to make a moving in a context that he knew would be misunderstood and villified. Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) said it best; (paraphrasing) "this isn't titillating, this is sick".