Sucker Punch (2011) review

In the world of film, nothing is perfect. There are films that many of us regard as some of the greatest films ever made, but that doesn’t mean that a movie will always be universally loved. There will be some people who don’t like a certain film and that could be for various reasons. But at the end of the day, it’s all really just a matter of opinion. The same can be said in regard to directors and their filmographies. I believe that directors like Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, and Martin Scorcese have yet to make a bad film but that’s really just my own opinion. Every filmmaker in Hollywood will most likely end up with one bad film on their resume, but it shouldn’t completely overshadow the good films they have made. That’s exactly the case with Zack Snyder, a director who has made some very good movies over the last few years, including ‘300’, ‘Watchmen’, and ‘Man of Steel’. Most of his films to date have been adaptations of preexisting material, except for one film. Released in 2011, ‘Sucker Punch’ was an original story written by Snyder and was a project that he had been working on for years… now, we’re about to see what went wrong with what I believe to be one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The film begins with the death of the mother of the main character Baby Doll (Emily Browning), which leaves her and her sister in the care of their greedy stepfather. When he finds out that, in her will, the mother had left all of her possessions to Baby Doll and her sister, the stepfather attempts to ‘take advantage’ of them. When Baby Doll tries to kill him, she accidentally kills her sister instead. Using this to his advantage, the stepfather has her sent to a mental asylum and, with the help of one of the asylum’s orderlies, Blue (Oscar Issac), plans to have her lobotomized so that she won’t notify the authorities about what really happened. With her lobotomy set to occur in five days, Baby Doll retreats into a fantasy world where she and the other inmates are dancers in a brothel. While in this fantasy, she plans to escape with the help of fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). In order to do so, they must collect five items; a key, a map, fire, a knife, and a fifth ‘mystery item’. While all of this is going on, Baby Doll begins to imagine adventures involving the five of them that directly parallel their actual escape efforts.

If all of that sounds a bit confusing, then you can see what the problem is with the writing; it’s an absolute mess. The ironic thing though is that it’s sort of a simple story; a girl gets put into a mental institution and tries to escape with the help of some of her fellow inmates. It’s sort of your basic ‘Get from Point A to Point B’ premise. Sounds simple, right? Well, then you add in the whole thing about these five characters going in and out of different fantasy worlds and yet most of the time is spent in the fantasy world. The film doesn’t return to the real world until the end of the film, and in the process leaves the viewer with a lot of questions, like; if most of the film takes place in Baby Doll’s mind, does that mean it’s really happening in real life? Who is this strange old man (Scott Glenn) that keeps appearing in Baby Doll’s fantasies giving out some of the oddest bits of motivational speeches ever to be put on film? If one of them dies in the fantasy world, wouldn’t they be okay in the real world? Those are just some of the many questions that I had while watching this movie again. It’s truly something how a plot this simple can become so damn convoluted. But then again, the writing is terrible anyway because it’s clear the main focus of this film is on its effects.

And that’s really the main problem with the movie; it’s pure style over substance. I do want to point out that, for the record, I have liked a few films, like the ‘Transformers’ movies and even Snyder’s ‘300’, that are exactly the same way but this is just an onslaught of visuals while those other films, while not having the best screenplays in the world, were not completely empty-minded. This on the other hand has a script so terrible that the visuals do most of the work for them. Sure, they do look nice but they keep coming at you so much that it sort of becomes really tiring on the eyes. In fact, there is one scene where Baby Doll is fighting robot samurais that I swear nearly gave me a seizure… and I’m someone who’s not at all prone to this kind of thing so I can’t even imagine what this would be like to someone who is. There may be a lot of cool things in this film, like WWI trench battles, dragons, and robots but it comes off more as a convoluted mish-mash of genres rather than being a cohesive narrative. This film’s soundtrack is also equally blaring on the senses. I’m not saying that it’s bad music, but it’s played so damn loud that for the most of the time, it’s hard to think straight when watching this film.

The weak screenplay also means a noticeable lack of character development. This film has five leads and yet the only one who gets any real backstory is Baby Doll just because she’s the main character but even then her backstory is rushed through in five minutes flat just so that they can get to the action sequences quicker. There’s some dialogue regarding the characters of Sweet Pea and Rocket (who are sisters, by the way) and their family but it’s such a minor thing that you’ll probably not notice it. The other two characters, Blondie and Amber, are there just… because the filmmakers needed some extra sex appeal… and that’s another thing about this film in that while it is trying to be ‘empowering to women’, it fails so hard at doing it. I mean, how is this film supposed to be ‘empowering to women’ when the lead characters are dressed in sexy, revealing outfits and most of the film takes place in a brothel. Seriously, if I went into this film not knowing anything about it, I’d swear that this was a frigging exploitation film because there ain’t anything subtle about this film in the slightest. Talk about a way to waste a cast who, for the record, isn’t bad but it’s a case where they have absolutely nothing to work with.

I’ll admit that when I first saw this film in March 2011, I wasn’t as negative towards it as I am now; I felt that while the film was both strange and flawed, it was still an entertaining movie. However, over the next few months, as I thought about it more and more, my opinion on it drastically changed to the point where I ultimately labeled it as the worst film of 2011. After a second viewing, my opinion still stands. Now, I’ve liked some dumb films from time to time but even then I do have my limits, and ‘Sucker Punch’ continuously pushes them. It’s an extreme case of style over substance where the visuals are so in your face that it comes at the cost of any proper story elements and character development. It’s a film that an absolute mess from top to bottom and I cannot even think of any saving graces that this film has. In fact, the only good thing about this film isn’t even in the film itself. It was more of a personal development in that it helped my taste in film improve. I was no longer just impressed by a film for only having pretty visuals and nothing else. Zack Snyder is someone who has made good films but if this film proves anything, it is that Snyder should never be in charge of writing a film’s plot, which makes me kind of worried considering that he apparently has a story credit for ‘Batman vs. Superman’. Sigh… well, fingers crossed then.

Rating: 0/5!

(It is that bad, folks!)