Sucker Punch

***WARNING***

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS AND CONTRADICTIONS THEREFORE IT MAYBE UNSUITABLE FOR SOME FUCKS. [insert joke here] 

 ***YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED***

Before today my opinion of Zack Snyder was that he was a no talent hack with about as much imagination as a bored lemon which suffers with a sizable ketamine habit. His two previous works are '300' and 'Watchmen', they were both totally rubbish. '300' was badly acted, badly written and featured some of the most spectacular fight sequences which somehow still proved to be completely forgettable. It would be a fair argument in favor of Snyder if one were to say the source material wasn't really worthy of adaptation and I indeed would agree but when it comes to 'Watchmen' that argument will fall flat on its well rounded arse.

'Watchmen' was a ground breaking graphic novel and is loved by millions of geeky fanboys around the world. When it was written it was said that it could never be adapted to the big screen due to its complexity and depth, not phased by this Snyder jumped right in. Many people applauded 'Watchmen', I however, did not. All Snyder did was painstakingly take every frame from the comic and use it as a story board. There was no imagination involved, no artistic license and absolutely no originality to be found in 'Watchmen'. It was a big budget, boring copy and paste job with some of the most stupid music choices ever decided upon. I've seen it twice, and it was shit each time, a total waste of time which would have been better spent doing absolutely nothing. In fact,

Watchmen gets... 

0.5 out of 5

Even 'Avatar' scored higher.

Despite these rather major setbacks I went into Sucker Punch with an open mind. According to Vue's website 'Sucker Punch' was an action, adventure, musical, fantasy film. A collection of genres that intrigued me and I figured could actually work pretty well together. This is also the first film that Snyder hasn't adapted from an outside source so it also provided him with one final chance to prove that he isn't actually worse than the bringer of all evil Michael (duuuuurrrrrrrrrr) Bay. What happened during 'Sucker Punch's ninety minutes confused the fuck out of me.

There is a girl who gets sent to a mental asylum for killing her sister, only its not just a mental asylum, it also doubles up as a brothel and a strip club for the filthy rich. So this girl (her name already escapes me) teams up with a bunch of inmates to try and escape the strip, brothel asylum. In order to do this they must steal a few items and the plan to do this involves the girl dancing provocatively as a detraction. As if this wasn't ludicrous enough, every time she dances the girls are seen in an alternative reality/dream world where they go to battle against dragons, kill german monsters in a world war and infiltrate a train filled with robots. That is pretty much the plot, it's madder that a box of frogs hidden inside Brian Blessed's beard while he rides a banana train through the breast milk valley on his way to the suns ice cream cone core.

OK so we've established that the plot is insane, but is it any good? In short, no. It's never explained, its badly structured, the pacing is terrible and by the end of the film it turns out to have all been pointless anyway reminding me very much of Guy Ritchie's second darkest hour 'Revolver'. It even ends on an off note implying that the audience must have a good think in order to work out it' true meaning of which it clearly has none. On top of all that the characters are barely one dimensional and the dialogue could have literally been ripped from any given Dan Brown novel. So writing wise its like listening to Chris Tucker scream like a girl for ninety minutes while he scrapes his nails down a chalk board, or in short unbearable. Any guesses what master of the universe wrote this epic yarn then? You guessed it, Zack Snyder.

The films soundtrack deserves some special attention also. The soundtrack is made up pretty much exclusively of really terrible cover versions of decent songs. Laying waste to tracks by The Eurythmics, Iggy and the Stooges, The pixies and Queen without any respect to the original work and in the long run damaging what many have to come to know and love by proceeding to hammer it into our ear drums with what seems like overly aggressive smug glee. And to top it all off, the songs are so integral to the films plot that they are required to be there in order to hold the cruddy mess together thusly forcing the audience into paying attention to them. If your a fan of having your ears raped until they resemble the insides of a blood orange, then this is the film for you.

Finally a note on the look of the film. Every shot is over the top. Distracting camera moves, overly dramatic frame compositions and special effects that while impressive just come across like an effect house has vomited all over the film reel, leaving bits of corn and bile splotches everywhere like some overly expensive Jackson Pollock painting.

It is usually at this point in the review where I give a summing up of a films good and bad points in order to give you (the readers) an idea as to whether the film is your cup of tea or not. I however have absolutely nothing good to say about 'Sucker Punch'. Watching it actually hurt me, it angered and upset me. I'd rather have moved to Norwich and payed to lick the skid marks out of every fat locals week old undergarments. I swear, thats no word of a lie.

Zack Snyder is officially the least talented hack in cinema today, I've officially given up on him. 

Sucker Punch gets...   

the golden turd award reserved for films that truly are a massive pile of shit.