Sucker Punch: Zach Snyder gets to play dress up with young actresses
When I first saw the trailer for "Sucker Punch" many months ago I was really excited. The movie looked breathtaking and the action looked intense. But I was a bit hesitant because the trailer revealed very little about the actual plot of the film. After watching the trailer many times, I came to the conclusion that the movie was either going to be great or terrible with no middle ground. I didn't know how wrong I would actually be.
"Sucker Punch" is the 5th film that Zach Snyder, best known for his work with "300" and "Watchmen," has directed. Snyder co wrote the movie with Steve Shibuya. Both have never written an original screenplay prior to this attempt. What they ended up churning out was a little bit of a mess and showed many flaws that emphasize how green they really are to the whole writing process. That is not to say it wasn't an enjoyable movie to watch because it was. It is just not a good movie. It's basically like candy it "tastes" good but has no nutritional value. Should I just call the movie "eye candy?"
The plot is by far the weakest part of the movie. It was very thin and felt arbitrary. The movie on the surface is about a girl, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who gets sent to an insane asylum after her step father frames her for the murder of her sister. The asylum is run by a sleazy man by the name of Blue Jones (Oscar Issac). The step father pays Jones to corroborate his story and have Baby Doll lobotomized so that she can never refute his claim. Turns out the doctor who will perform the lobotomy will arrive in 5 days and Baby Doll has that amount of time to escape. That sounds pretty straight forward right? And that part is but then it becomes a bit of a mess. Baby Doll for some reason enters an alternate reality in her mind where the asylum is actually a whore house. She is still trying to escape within 5 days but from the "high roller," a man who it's alluded to will take her virginity for a large sum of money, rather than from the doctor. While in this alternate reality she enters another alternate reality and here she learns that she needs to find 5 items in order to escape. A map, fire, a knife, a key, and the fifth thing, which is a mystery but will be a require a "great sacrifice." So she teams up with the other call girls who in reality are actual patients in the same asylum in order to get these items and escape.
The plot is very convoluted. It really feels like Snyder had a few vignettes in his mind but with no real connectivity between them. So he came up with this messy reality within a reality idea to put these vignettes together. There is about 5 vignettes, none of which have any real continuity. In one the girls are fighting Nazi robots in another they are on some planet with Saturn as a backdrop trying to stop a runaway train with a bomb. The movie was all over the place. Snyder did ultimately have an interesting message to send. But he was tactless in his delivery. The whole film comes off as preachy and pretentious. The worst offender being the final monologue of the film. It's presence just completely plays the moviegoer off as an idiot. The monologue spells out the message of the entire film. It's essentially a slap in the face. It's like "hey dumbass, there's no way that you with your tiny brains could infer what I was getting at so I'm just going to tell you."
Yet another problem with the plot was that it was nearly impossible to connect to any of the characters. Out of the five girls, who serve as the central characters of the film, only 3 were given vague backstories and the other two had none whatsoever. Every single character was flat. It didn't help that the acting jobs ranged from passable to abysmal. Emily Browning does a decent enough job as Baby Doll. I mean there's only so much you can do when all the script really calls for is a vacant stare and the occasional pouting face. Abbie Cornish does a barely passable job playing Sweet Pea. She is the de facto leader of the group but doesn't have that feel of authority in her performance. Jena Malone does a passable job as Rocket. She's the stereotypical badass of the group so she mostly had to just have a devil may care attitude, which she carries fairly well. As for the abysmal performances they come from Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie and Jamie Chung as Amber. Coincidence those two characters were the ones without backstories? Hudgens is just a terrible actress. In one scene she was supposed to deliver a line while shooting at a dragon and the way she delivers it is laughable. It scares me a bit that this was probably the best cut they had of her delivering that line. As for Chung, she just delivered her few lines like she was trying too hard.
But worry not there was actually one amazing performance out in the movie. It comes from Oscar Issac as Blue Jones. He came across as a sleazy club owner and a corrupt asylum owner. But there was something just a little bit endearing in his character. I think that was all Issac's doing. He brought strength to a rather weak written character.
One last negative before we get to some positives. I liked the music but like in his previous film "Watchmen," the songs fit each scene far too well. They seem to be perfectly describing the scene going on in the film. It feels cheap and cheesy. Like he's almost trying to double evoke the same feelings through music and on screen visuals. I feel like Snyder does this once again because he questions the viewers intelligence to understand the emotion based simply on the visuals. Some may love the way he chooses the music but I feel it's condescending and oppressive.
With all those negatives there have to be some positives. The one aspect of the trailer that was as promised were the visuals. The other worldly scenes were very beautifully done. Although it was mostly CGI it looked seamless. And every single CGI laden scene was really a joy to watch. You could definitely feel a heavy anime influence in many of the visuals. From the girls posing when they first land after jumping out of a plane to the glowing aura signifying a power up ala DragonBall Z. I honestly believe that if people viewed this as an obscure indi/art film it would have been far better received than the big budget action film it was marketed as. I also liked the sort of twist that was thrown in at the end. I won't ruin it by saying what it was. I'm sure it's been done before but I can't remember anything recently that has done it.
So yeah it does seem like the visuals were the only real thing that kept me enthralled. The movie has Snyder's unique touch. The colors were all muddy and dark and there were a lot of slow motion to normal speed shots as well as his unique way of panning in and doing fast cuts.
So honestly this movie has a very thin plot that was made far more convoluted than it needed to be. It never becomes incoherent but a lot of situations are just presented with no explanation. The movie was not well thought out. The characters were terrible one dimensional caricatures of generic archetypes. But I still managed to find the movie enjoyable for the action scenes and cinematography. And I tend to judge a movie by the amount of enjoyment I am able to get out of it rather than technical merits. After all we watch movies to take a short break from reality. In that sense "Sucker Punch" does a good job of creating an interesting escape. This may be complete blasphemy to say but I enjoyed "Sucker Punch" more than "Watchmen." I would recommend it. As long as you don't go in expecting a life changing plot and just turn your mind off you should have a good time.
"Sucker Punch" is the 5th film that Zach Snyder, best known for his work with "300" and "Watchmen," has directed. Snyder co wrote the movie with Steve Shibuya. Both have never written an original screenplay prior to this attempt. What they ended up churning out was a little bit of a mess and showed many flaws that emphasize how green they really are to the whole writing process. That is not to say it wasn't an enjoyable movie to watch because it was. It is just not a good movie. It's basically like candy it "tastes" good but has no nutritional value. Should I just call the movie "eye candy?"
The plot is by far the weakest part of the movie. It was very thin and felt arbitrary. The movie on the surface is about a girl, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who gets sent to an insane asylum after her step father frames her for the murder of her sister. The asylum is run by a sleazy man by the name of Blue Jones (Oscar Issac). The step father pays Jones to corroborate his story and have Baby Doll lobotomized so that she can never refute his claim. Turns out the doctor who will perform the lobotomy will arrive in 5 days and Baby Doll has that amount of time to escape. That sounds pretty straight forward right? And that part is but then it becomes a bit of a mess. Baby Doll for some reason enters an alternate reality in her mind where the asylum is actually a whore house. She is still trying to escape within 5 days but from the "high roller," a man who it's alluded to will take her virginity for a large sum of money, rather than from the doctor. While in this alternate reality she enters another alternate reality and here she learns that she needs to find 5 items in order to escape. A map, fire, a knife, a key, and the fifth thing, which is a mystery but will be a require a "great sacrifice." So she teams up with the other call girls who in reality are actual patients in the same asylum in order to get these items and escape.
The plot is very convoluted. It really feels like Snyder had a few vignettes in his mind but with no real connectivity between them. So he came up with this messy reality within a reality idea to put these vignettes together. There is about 5 vignettes, none of which have any real continuity. In one the girls are fighting Nazi robots in another they are on some planet with Saturn as a backdrop trying to stop a runaway train with a bomb. The movie was all over the place. Snyder did ultimately have an interesting message to send. But he was tactless in his delivery. The whole film comes off as preachy and pretentious. The worst offender being the final monologue of the film. It's presence just completely plays the moviegoer off as an idiot. The monologue spells out the message of the entire film. It's essentially a slap in the face. It's like "hey dumbass, there's no way that you with your tiny brains could infer what I was getting at so I'm just going to tell you."
Yet another problem with the plot was that it was nearly impossible to connect to any of the characters. Out of the five girls, who serve as the central characters of the film, only 3 were given vague backstories and the other two had none whatsoever. Every single character was flat. It didn't help that the acting jobs ranged from passable to abysmal. Emily Browning does a decent enough job as Baby Doll. I mean there's only so much you can do when all the script really calls for is a vacant stare and the occasional pouting face. Abbie Cornish does a barely passable job playing Sweet Pea. She is the de facto leader of the group but doesn't have that feel of authority in her performance. Jena Malone does a passable job as Rocket. She's the stereotypical badass of the group so she mostly had to just have a devil may care attitude, which she carries fairly well. As for the abysmal performances they come from Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie and Jamie Chung as Amber. Coincidence those two characters were the ones without backstories? Hudgens is just a terrible actress. In one scene she was supposed to deliver a line while shooting at a dragon and the way she delivers it is laughable. It scares me a bit that this was probably the best cut they had of her delivering that line. As for Chung, she just delivered her few lines like she was trying too hard.
But worry not there was actually one amazing performance out in the movie. It comes from Oscar Issac as Blue Jones. He came across as a sleazy club owner and a corrupt asylum owner. But there was something just a little bit endearing in his character. I think that was all Issac's doing. He brought strength to a rather weak written character.
One last negative before we get to some positives. I liked the music but like in his previous film "Watchmen," the songs fit each scene far too well. They seem to be perfectly describing the scene going on in the film. It feels cheap and cheesy. Like he's almost trying to double evoke the same feelings through music and on screen visuals. I feel like Snyder does this once again because he questions the viewers intelligence to understand the emotion based simply on the visuals. Some may love the way he chooses the music but I feel it's condescending and oppressive.
With all those negatives there have to be some positives. The one aspect of the trailer that was as promised were the visuals. The other worldly scenes were very beautifully done. Although it was mostly CGI it looked seamless. And every single CGI laden scene was really a joy to watch. You could definitely feel a heavy anime influence in many of the visuals. From the girls posing when they first land after jumping out of a plane to the glowing aura signifying a power up ala DragonBall Z. I honestly believe that if people viewed this as an obscure indi/art film it would have been far better received than the big budget action film it was marketed as. I also liked the sort of twist that was thrown in at the end. I won't ruin it by saying what it was. I'm sure it's been done before but I can't remember anything recently that has done it.
So yeah it does seem like the visuals were the only real thing that kept me enthralled. The movie has Snyder's unique touch. The colors were all muddy and dark and there were a lot of slow motion to normal speed shots as well as his unique way of panning in and doing fast cuts.
So honestly this movie has a very thin plot that was made far more convoluted than it needed to be. It never becomes incoherent but a lot of situations are just presented with no explanation. The movie was not well thought out. The characters were terrible one dimensional caricatures of generic archetypes. But I still managed to find the movie enjoyable for the action scenes and cinematography. And I tend to judge a movie by the amount of enjoyment I am able to get out of it rather than technical merits. After all we watch movies to take a short break from reality. In that sense "Sucker Punch" does a good job of creating an interesting escape. This may be complete blasphemy to say but I enjoyed "Sucker Punch" more than "Watchmen." I would recommend it. As long as you don't go in expecting a life changing plot and just turn your mind off you should have a good time.
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