Sucker Punch
(I'm aware this review is rather late and possibly not relevant, but after wasting nearly 3 hours on this film, I had to write something).I’ve always believed that if a film hasn’t captured my attention within 10 minutes, it’s not a good film. ‘Sucker Punch’ is not a good film. It’s garbage, pure and simple.
HEAVY HANDED ATTEMPT AT BEING AMBIGUIOUS SLOW. FUCKING. MOTION Seriously, that’s all I got. About 15 minutes in, after a laborious opening sequence, we’re treated to a huge musical number. It’s like Moulin Rouge, but somehow worse. It jars horribly with the film we've seen up to this point. And this is where the film totally lost me. The pace is completely non existent, the tone is all over the place and seriously, by the 30 minute mark I should know a little about the plot. All I got was ‘HEY!! HEY!!! ARNT THESE GIRLS SEXY? YEEEEEAAAAH SLOW MOTION SEXY GIRLS!!!’ It’s not that I didn’t ‘get it’, it’s more that there’s nothing to get. It tries to be like 'Brazil' crossed with a computer game, with some attempts to be all ‘Oh, is it in her mind…ooooh we don’t know….’ But the narrative just isn’t there. It’s pushed back to third place behind the ‘cool’ action and ‘cool’ music, so it becomes a big, bloated mess of CGI and fetish costumes. Things do pick up in the last 40 mins, but by then my mind had well and truly wandered off into a world of it's own fantasy where I fought massive dragons...
...dragons with Zack Snyders face. How a film about 5 girls fighting giant, demonic Samurai, Nazi Zombies and massive dragons could be this dull is a mystery way more complicated than the film itself (or more complicated than it thinks it is). If they cut all the badly placed, amateur psychology crap and just made this a straight action film about a team of girls who kick ass, it would’ve been great. It’s not that I don’t like depth, i love depth...bring on the depth. It’s just when it's handled with all the subtlety an skill of internet fan-fiction, it’s best left out.
The main problem I have with Zack Snyder is his over-use and relience on hyper-realism. It worked for '300' as the characters and plot were paper thin…the visuals were the main draw. But for films like 'Sucker Punch' and 'Watchmen', it detracts from the attempts at a deeper narrative and character. If everything looks like a orange and teal washed fantasy world, you can’t connect to the characters; you can’t care if they’re in peril because nothing has any weight to it. A little bit of restraint occasionally would do wonders. This is especially evident in 'Watchmen'. One of the levels the comic works on is because of the absolute real world it's set in. The film has supposedly normal humans with no powers flipping a guy 180 degress in mid air and punching him 20ft across an alley, stripping away any sense of 'the real' and placing the story firmly within fantasy...ultimately undermining the comics story.
Who says Hollywoods obsession with Orange and Teal has gotten out of hand? His other big problem appears to be the ‘it’s cool so it’s cool’ theory. Having a Bjork/The Pixies/Queen song into a film that is clearly set in the 1960’s just doesn’t work. It throws the entire tone of the film out. ‘Where is My Mind’ worked so well in ‘Fight Club’ because of the timing and the moment it was used. In this film, it jars terribly. Also, the song (well, a terrible cover version) seems to be Snyders idea of a subtle hint at the plot...and it's as subtle as being punched in the face. With a house.
Oh, and special mention has to go to Vanessa Hudgens. Words cannot describe how much she fails to deliver a single line with any believable sign of emotion. (Though I doubt any of the girls were highed for their acting ability). On a slightly positive note, some of the action is very well shot, the moments that don't rely on S L O W M O T I O N flow really well and are fairly engaging, we just don’t get to see many of them. From a design point the film excells too, with a real nice Steam Punk/Retro Futurism look to the creatures/vehicles used. I fear for Snyders next project, Superman (or ‘Man of Steel’ as it’s tentatively titled). Hopefully, under Christopher Nolan’s guidance, he might hold back on the ‘HEEEYYY!! HEEEEYYY!!! LOOK HOW FUCKING COOL THIS IS’ moments and show some restraint, cut out the pop-culture music cues and just make a damn good action film. It’s obvious he has it in him, he just requires a hand to steer him in the right direction.But then, I read this quote by Snyder on the films title:
'There's a mechanism in the movie that sneaks up on you. We sort of plant the seed of this thing, and then at the end of the movie it kind of comes back around. I think that in some ways, that's what the Sucker Punch is.
It's like he thinks this film is actually really clever...like he's made his opus. Nolan's got his work cut out.
Seductivly dancing my way into a fantasy world of 140 characters...or...something: @GavWeir
