Good, but Lacked Punch

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2011)

First of all, let me state that I'm a big admirer of Zack Snyder's ability to astonish the visual senses and, for lack of a better term, his ability to make the audience feel extremely "badass." However characteristic of his style, the film also unfortunately fell into his footsteps of tradition in terms of story and character: the plot was extremely thin, and the characters felt two dimensional. At numerous points throughout the film, I found myself extremely engaged in fantastic action sequences rich with steampunk imagery and almost anime-characteristic, intricately choreographed combat; yet, at the same time my own nondiegetic nagging voice questioned the intent behind the sequences. For example, the main character Baby Doll (Emily Browning) exists on three planes of existence (and to avoid spoilers, I will not further divulge information about them).
One of the three, however spectacular it appears to be, is completely disconnected from the plot or story, so much so that when watching these particular sequences, the viewer is almost asked to completely disassociate from the logical narrative world and plunge into a world of chaos and fantasy. While very engaging due to their nature as quasi-comic book action scenes characteristic of Zack Snyder's style, they serve little purpose in perpetuating the narrative or developing ulterior themes. They just look cool. This is unfortunate and very detrimental to the film, as the common film-goer may find this fantastic, but those looking for a deeper, more heartfelt message may find the film a bit dry. Additionally, this harmed numerous scenes with character interaction, especially with certain characters' states of finality (where the viewer knows what emotion should be felt, but the connection to the characters just isn't there to contribute to that emotion) in the closing images of the film. Knowing Snyder and his potential, though, the revelation of this fact was disappointing, albeit a bit expected; however, it's standard quality did not come as a complete sucker punch to me.