Punch Drunk !

Rating: 4/10 (14 February 2013)

I have to begin by something Zack Snyder, the writer / director of Sucker Punch, said about this very movie: "A while ago, I had written a script for myself, and there was a sequence in it, that made me think: How can I make a film that can have action sequences in it, that aren't limited by the physical realities that normal people are limited by, but still have the story make sense so it's not a thing like Ultraviolet or something like that?!"
OK, for starters this is not a bad movie. It's one about oppression, getting freedom, and knowing yourself while it, however, told by a different way that mixes dreams, with music video style, added to action. Seems cool. And it's cool indeed in a way. Though the ultimate outcome is weak, due to some reasons.
Firstly, the action sequences. They're imaginative and frantic, yes, but without the most important element that any action needs, which is the creditability. We all know, pretty well, that they're illusions in the heroine's head, as alternative expressions for other happenings, so the viewer's interplay with them is dead. Not to mention, that they suspend their main happenings as well. Simply, they seem like segments from another movie, that this one uses to interrupt itself. So how about their fact as dreams within another dream within reality?! Apparently, this is a case of a movie that encumbers itself by itself, to force some action anyway!
Secondly, the confusion. That mix of many dreams within another dream within reality-does bother, especially when you know by heart that the action dreams are unnecessary and stand in front the story's flow. That eventually formed a weird and exhausting plot of dramatically dead action, within interrupted illusionary thriller, within absent real another thriller! Let alone that it assembles many unanswered questions, like what was the equal of the heroine's dances in reality? Or how a murder, like the one that cook did, was kept secret?! Sure something tells you if the action sequences have been collected, and had any in-between, they would have made better movie. And if that one itself had a twist at its end, concerning being a dream of a girl who hates her reality or re-pictures it, then it would have been even better, like other twisty movies lately. Thus, writing it the way it is, lost many advantages, and created enough problems.
Thirdly, the characterization. If you want to do a movie about precious values, and not another brainless action, then you have to have well-made characters. But sorrowfully, this script didn't. All what we had was something like: pretty girl who can plan super smartly, and has such a highly cultured imagination (where did that come from?!). A girl who's worried about her sister. Then, that girl's sister. And so on! So, accordingly, what did you add to make your movie totally else "a thing like Ultraviolet", Mr. Snyder?!
Fourthly, why the movie treated its heroine, Emily Browning, as a Babydoll from the start? I know that turning her face, by heavy make-up, into a doll's face is something understood as long as takes place inside the limits of that casino / brothel. But since the first scenes, of the lead character in her home, the movie shows her the same way that brothel does, and - strangely - she pictures herself later with the same image in her own dreamy battles! So, what was the point?! In my most objective states, I'll say that maybe while the movie sees that some girls are born as already dolls, it uncovers that they can think, plan, and choose the moral choice. Still, something was uneasy about showing the heroine, rather all the girly cast, as dolls, for the entire time; as if it's ALL a wet dream in the brain of the movie's manly makers!
On the positive side, the performance was sane, and somehow convincing. Browning proves how charismatic she is, how intense she can be, and how expressive she can sing. The fantastic battles were dazzlingly designed, with fresh imagination; it had an Asian legend with giant samurais, a WW2 with zombie Nazis, a middle age European combat with mother dragon, and a Vietnam war with fighting robots. The used songs on the soundtrack were really selective, and creatively arranged. They enhanced the sad sense, and made the movie overall special. The cinematography, along with the editing, did a wonderful job. However, the fault was in a deeper level, putting the whole movie in a cleft stick.
Zack Snyder isn't God's gift to writing scripts. And I'm certain that it eats you how he squeezed 82 million dollar, from Warner Bros., to produce this pet project of his. Because, in the end, Sucker Punch should be named Punch Drunk. It resorts to sophisticated narrative, fabricates expensive loud and unrelated-to-anything action, and does some mistakes, all not for the sake of telling its story, just making it superficially different. So, true that the movie ends up as a tale with a new taste, and a rare chance to watch something else the brainless action made by this insane amount of money, but weaker than many brainless action movies, since these movies sound - in comparison - more solid and thrilling, less alleged and mixed up.
In a word, Snyder loves the action, hates doing it brainlessly, yet here he failed to write his dream of action with brain, moreover, offered a classic wrong way to do it!