Sucker Punch Lives up to its Titleby
Morgan P Salvo
Unfortunately Zack Snyder the guy who brought us the fast paced Dawn of the Dead redux and the intriguing Watchmen has softened to PG-13 territory. I went in to the widely anticipated Sucker Punch wondering, will this film deliver or not? The previews looked promising. The premise of catholic-school-meets-Victoria Secret girls fighting demons, dragons and kicking ass was somewhat appealing. Well, Sucker Punch not only doesn’t deliver, it’s a wretched mess. I can only assume the reason for its title is that it lands a roundhouse blow to the back of the audience’s skull to for not anticipating how incredibly lame it would be.
Wrongfully locked away in an insane asylum orphanage, a young woman named Babydoll (an extremely pouty Emily Browning) retreats to two fantasy worlds: a brothel and dance therapy studio where a fantasy scenario is played out to imitate the nut-house high-jinks and her ‘Escape to Video Game Island’. She accesses the latter place by dancing (a feat we never see her do). As soon as she closes her big-lashed eyelids we are transported to a video game-type sword battle and/or shoot out. Determined to fight for freedom, she enlists four women – Rocket (Jena Malone), a lost soul, Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), a never explained brunette, snotty bitch Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and Amber (Jamie Chung) as background filler to try to escape the terrible phony fate that awaits them. 
Parallel universe is a cool idea if played with correctly, if not it’s disastrous. This is not a dream within a dream etc. This is a futile attempt to tell three separate stories in an effort to interlace the plot. I can’t tell which of the three versions are the worst; the unbelievable reality, the insipid brothel version, or the hideously contrived video game battle sequences. Then there’s the bad writing. This is Snyder’s first screenplay that resembles a graphic novel but without any real attempt at social commentary. It’s all action fluff. A stupid concept that’s unoriginal to the max, Sucker Punch lacks any spunk in a virtual sea of promising spunkiness. This flick also lacks any vampiness - the heroines are dressed in schoolgirl-ballerina-slut outfits intended to entice male fantasy but do not beguile as sexpot dancers or tough chick kick-ass fighters. Instead they emerge as inept hookers and vulnerable crybabies.
SP has plenty of dull moments. The dialogue is atrocious, the characters never developed and the acting is as cardboard as it gets with the exception of Carla Gugino as Dr. Gorski rattling off a polish accent and Isaac Otis (the over acting king from the recent Robin Hood) hamming it up as Blue the pimp and/or head nurse depending on whatever plane of existence you choose.
There’s a ton of dreadful and ridiculously over-used cover songs, like “Tomorrow Never Knows”, “White Rabbit” and others from Bjork, Pixies, Stooges, and Queen. But the most radical and embarrassing is Blue and Dr. Gorski’s version of Roxy Music’s “Love is a Drug” over the credits.With such a fresh look and the girls-in-prison concept at his disposal, Snyder drops the ball and makes one long, boring, high-tech ambush. Somewhere in here is a Russ Meyer flick dying to get out. I noticed that this was a “Cruel and Unusual” film production. I concur. Sucker Punch made me feel like I got punched in the brain. All the distracting action still can’t mask the stupidity
SUCKER PUNCHStarring Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino , Scott Glenn
Directed by Zack Snyder
Rated PG-13
1 ½ stars
No comments:
Post a Comment