Saturday, January 10, 2015

Film Review - Sucker Punch (2011)

Sucker Punch is directed by Zack Snyder and stars Emily Browning as Babydoll, a young girl who accidentally kills her sister and is locked up in a mental home where she meets 4 other inmates; Sisters Rocket (Jena Malone) and Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and together they plot to escape the mental home but this will not be easy.

Hmmm, Wow.

This was a train wreck and a half of a film, seriously I feel like I've sat through one of the worst films I've ever seen in my life and there is no question that had I seen this film in 2011 when it was released this would've been my pick for the worst film of that year, how bad is it let me count the ways:

- First of all nothing in this film makes any sense whatsoever as when the drama accelerates the film takes a complete left turn into these wild battle fantasies with Scott Glenn criminally wasted as their mentor where there's giant blimps, mech walkers, robotic samurai's, dragons, orcs, terminator style robots and a LOT OF SLOOOOOWWWWWWWW MOOOOTTIOOOONNNN LIKE THIIIISSSSSS and all the while you're watching all of this you start nodding off to sleep.

- Which leads me to my next problem with this film and that is the lack of heart in this film which was the same problem I've had with Snyder's work overall (I can't tell you how much I am dreading his upcoming Dawn of Justice film in 2016, I fear the absolute worst for it) in that for all of this physical mounting and gigantic scope and scale you don't care about anyone inside the machine and as a result it becomes harder to enjoy the battle sequences or care for the 5 girls when they get into trouble.

- And lastly this film has no shape or tone or structure in its script, the darkness of the mental home and the outlandish battle fantasies feel like they're out of entirely different films and just don't blend together now there could've been an interesting story about this girl who already has these fantasies before she's locked up and with the other inmates comes out of her nightmare and they all win their freedom or indeed a film like Jacob's Ladder with Tim Robbins which is FAR FAR FAR superior to this film despite its own faults where all the 4 inmates are victims of violence hence the incarceration to help them and the 5th comes in and says "I can Block the Ladder" and they all help each other to sanity but No it's just easier to dress them all in leather, have them fight and dance and then watch them all suffer.

But throughout this entire film one question kept coming to mind "Where is Paul Verhoeven?" as he could make this sort of Gender Neutral, Hyper Violent and Very Edgy action picture (The original Robocop and Total Recall as well as Starship Troopers are all very high quality) in a way that is exciting, makes sense and also makes you care about the 5 girls whereas Snyder just self indulges in the worst way and Glenn along with Malone and Cornish are all wasted as a result though Oscar Issac is probably the only redeeming quality about this mess.

And so that was Sucker Punch, a film to avoid at all costs as I hated it that much, 0 out of 5.

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