Zach Snyder has made very few enjoyable films, his best effort I believe was Watchmen (at least, from the films of his I have seen). Unfortunately, it is time for the final nail in his coffin. He made a film called Sucker Punch that I can not and will not forgive. This film is bad on so many levels, and I'm about to give Sucker Punch and Zach Snyder a tase of their own medicine. So Sucker Punch and Zach Snyder...prepare to get Sucker Punch'd.
Sucker Punch is the story of Babydoll who, after a series of unfortunate incidents, is sent to a mental institution where she is set to be lobotomized. During the procedure she escapes into a fantasy world that exists only inside her mind. While my description of the plot makes sense, the way they go about telling the story in the film only confuses the viewer and turns the film into a nonsensical nightmare.
Unlike the film, I will attempt to order my complaints in a way that make sense. My first complaint: The message.
The film has heavy feminist views, but the puppet-master (Zach Snyder) is not a feminist and so the message is ultimately perverted. The film is all about female empowerment, but according to the film the female leads get their strength and power form their sexuality and their bodies. This, I'm sure, would send any true feminist into a rage. The ladies represent female empowerment, but they wear sexually suggestive clothes, and do sexually suggestive dances that turn any sane headed male intro a drooling mess.
This brings me to my second complaint with the film: It's portrayal of males. In Sucker Punch, every male seen in the film is disgusting, perverted and inherently evil (all except the wise man who appears ONLY in the dream sequences). The males in this film are easily distracted by girls dancing seductively, and while this is probably true of just about any teen male I think adults wouldn't be so easily rused. This deeply offends me. I am a man, and while I do enjoy girls in bikini's and girls dancing I'm not some perverted, dumb animal that only thinks about girls in a sexual way or is only out to hurt and abuse girls, I wouldn't lose all sense of reason or consciousness if a girl were to dance in font of me for a few minutes. I think I would notice if a girl were to steal something out of my pocket if another one was dancing in front of me. Zach Snyder's portrayal of men comes across like he watched a week's worth of Lifetime and then put those ideals into his film. It's clear he is trying to appeal to females, but he's doing it all wrong.
My third complaint with the film is it's insistence to try and make it's proceedings as nonsensical as possible, because Inception was such a popular film...right? The film starts out in the real world, then receeds into Babydoll's fantasy world, and then (during Babydoll's dance sequences) receeds even deeper into her mind only to return to her previous fantasy world when the dance ends. NOTHING MAKES ANY GODDAMNED SENSE!!!! At least in Inception the film tried to apply some form of sense and intelligence to it's proceedings, in Sucker Punch Zach Snyder throws a wrench into the gears of his film and thinks he's suceeded when audiences walk out confused. Even at the end of the film when we FINALLY return to the real world Snyder still attempts to keep things nonsensical when we are told the whole story was actually about another inmate who we aren't even given a backstory for or a reason to care about. Why would Babydoll do all this for someone she doesn't even know very well? Snyder also puts the head of the Sanitarium in an inmate uniform even though there is no reason for him to be in one except it makes the film that much more confusing. I see what you're trying to do here Snyder, but PLEASE STOP, you don't understand the art that we call film well enough to succeed in your efforts.
My fourth complaint are the fantasy-action sequences. In a way, Sucker Punch almost feels like Zach Snyder wanted to do some mini-tales he never had the chance to do, and these manifest in the numerous "dream-within-a-dream" sequences in the film. These parts don't make any sense either, as the girls are pit against dragons, steampunk Nazi's, futuristic robots, and robotic samurai soldiers. Why??? Because Zach Snyder always wanted to create these awesome scenes, he doesn't care if the audience gives a fuck-all about them... he's clearly doing this for himself and no one else. In fact, it feels like the whole film was done purely for his own entertainment, audience sensibilities were not taken into concern in any part of the film. If Zach Snyder thought it was cool, it made it into the finished product. These sequences fail to capture audiences imaginations or even their attention, because there is never any tension or reason to root for anybody inside these parts. It is made clear these parts are not actually occurring and so nobody is actually in any real danger. I wonder why Snyder didn't realize this when he was crafting these parts...maybe he just didn't care?
My fifth complaint is the violence found in the film. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some mindless violence but for some reason the violence found in Sucker Punch really rubbed me the wrong way. The violence sampled here is surprisingly brutal and intense, and not to mention there's a lot of it. The Nazi sequence is host to quite possibly the most brutal, intense volence found in the film and the Dragon sequence actually had me rooting for the Dragon to gobble all them heartless bitches up. These girls kill an innocent dragon baby just because they are told to, and when it's mother emerges in a fit of rightful vengeance we are supposed to root for her demise, when in reality she is completely justified. These girls truly deserve to die in this sequence (but they don't). I strongly believe that Sucker Punch deserved an R rating for it's depictions of violnce in the film, but somehow Snyder suckered the MPAA into letting him slip by with a PG-13, an incorrect rating for a film that can be surprisingly heartless, brutal and intense at times.
Now, let me point out the only few good things in this otherwise terrible film. Oscar Isaac is fantastic as the sleazy whorehouse owner/sanitarium head. He appears to be the only one having fun with his role and easily steals every scene he's in. Despite his status as lead villain, he's still a fun character (He also appears in Driver). Another highlight is Jon Hamm as the lobotomist, not much to be said here. He's a great actor, and while he's only in the end of the film he still plays his role pretty well. That's all the good stuff folks, sadly.
Snyder is a purely selfish filmmaker that creates films purely for his own twisted amusement, and this has never been clearer than in Sucker Punch, a film which feels like it was made purely to be played over and over in Snyder's own private viewing room. The female empowerment message is twisted and warped so that it fits Snyder's own image of females, the film never attempts to make any goddamned sense (Possibly the most frustrating aspect of Sucker Punch), it's fantasy sequences are full of dull CGI and non-exciting pieces of action ( and, of-course, TONS of super slo-mo shots), and the handling of the male characters is just as offensive and angering as the film's handling of its female characters.
So all in all, if you think you'd enjoy a good 2 hours of Zach Snyder ejaculating all over the screen...then maybe Sucker Punch is right up your alley. Myself though, I think I can find better films with which to waste my time and money on. Put simply, Sucker Punch sucks!
0.5/5 FUCK YOU!
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