"What is this.... I don't even..."
"Where was the story?"
^Above is a small section of a conversation I had upon immediately leaving Suckerpunch, the latest effort from Zack Snyder. In the past I have been unabashed in my enjoyment of Snyder's films. 300 was a great action film and even though it never actually said anything of substance it was never meant to and I can respect that. I also believed that he handled the Watchmen adaption as best anyone possibly could for what is considered an unfilmable movie. I rank it as one of my favorite superhero genre films. However, Suckerpunch shows us that Zack should really stick to just directing and leave the scriptwriting to the professionals.
The story is a completely muddled mess that involves a girl falling deeper and deeper into her own mind as a coping mechanism. The trailers for the film focus heavily on the 3rd "tier" which is where all the action sequences are. These are the best parts of the film. The action is glorious and the visuals are just absolutely amazing. However, none of it really makes much sense... for starters: why would this 20 year old girl, when exploring her own mind, derive a fantasy more befitting a 13 year old boy?
Most of the time the acting feels stiff and very forced... I think because most everyone in the movie was wondering what the fuck was going on. In the end, the visuals just can't quite prop up the rest of the film. I appreciate what Snyder was trying to do here but it really did fall flat. Better luck next time. At the very least, when it comes to films that are all visuals and no substance... its still better than Avatar:
Final Score: 5/10
