According to his marketing and advertising gurus, director Zack Snyder is a visionary. After his breakout success directing “300,” adapted from the Frank Miller comic of the same name, many have looked forward to the day Snyder would use his unique visual stylings and put them toward an original story.
However, considering the result was “Sucker Punch,” a two-hour video game of a movie featuring an almost completely incoherent plot, one might begin to think that we’re throwing around the term “visionary” a bit too loosely.
The film follows a young girl named Baby Doll, who is put into an insane asylum after some sort of violent mishap occurs at home. I wish I could be more detailed about this mishap, but to be honest, I couldn’t understand what was happening. Snyder seemed far too interested in shooting things in slow motion and commissioning moody covers of “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” to actually tell a story.
Anyway, at the asylum, Baby Doll meets other young women with equally ridiculous names, like “Sweet Pea” and “Blondie,” and together they plot to escape the brutal asylum. Except suddenly, it’s not an asylum; it’s a brothel.
Yes, it seems that in order to mentally escape the asylum, Baby Doll imagines she’s in a house of prostitution. But it’s not over yet. When it comes for our heroine to dance, she goes further into her imagination and pictures herself as an awesome Sailor Moon-esque ninja warrior, fighting off Nazi zombies, dragons and robots with her scantily clad friends.
You know, your typical female daydream featuring short skirts and machine guns.
Clearly, Snyder’s plot has several problems, but perhaps the most glaring issue is conceptual in nature. These fantasy worlds don’t feel like the main character, played by “A Series of Unfortunate Events’” Emily Browning, imagined them. What they feel like are the dreams of the director himself, after a Mountain Dew-fueled night of Call of Duty and a peek at a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
The rest of the plot plays exactly like a video game. The characters go to new levels, get a mission from a random old guy who Snyder didn’t even bother to give a name, and then it’s off to go to blast Nazis and battle dragons.
No one will ever say that Snyder doesn’t have an eye for action and visuals. “Sucker Punch” looks great, and one particular action sequence on a train is pretty fun.
However, since these sequences have almost no relevance to the feeble story or what is occurring in Baby Doll’s imagination, there’s no reason for the audience to feel involved or excited by the action. Action for action’s sake is boring, and “Sucker Punch” proves that even the most explosive of action scenes can induce yawns.
Not helping matters is Snyder’s stilted and stiff dialogue. No one in the main cast seems comfortable with what they’re saying, although the villain, played by Oscar Issac, comes close. Even the normally reliable Jon Hamm, who even makes dry Mercedes-Benz commercials cool, struggles with his (thankfully few) minutes of screen time.
I wanted to like “Sucker Punch.” I generally like Zach Snyder’s visuals, and I was perfectly in the mood for mindlessly excessive action. But no amount of attractive women in garters and explosions can hide the gigantic black hole where this movie’s plot was supposed to be. I was Snyder’s target audience, and he completely missed.