Visually amazing, as usual....

Rating: 6/10 (31 March 2011)

I absolutely adore Zack Snyder. As far as I'm concerned, he is the George Lucas of my generation. Sucker Punch was as visually pleasing as promised, and the concept of the fantasy scenes was so incredibly original I have no other choice but to put mister Snyder at God status. However, I found myself wondering several times why I was the only person in the theatre laughing...was the intention of certain scenes/characters/lines to be so ridiculous, or was it a complete miss. Some of the scenes had so much tension in the background with either an overdone emotional reaction or totally un-buyable intimidation. I am aware that the story is meant to serve as social commentary, but it came off a bit underwhelming. Included in that, is Emily Browning. An amazing actress and believable as a kick-ass chick, I found myself see her as the only one of the bunch that didn't look like she would at all be a good dancer. That would be alright, had it been so that her character is supposed to be this captivating siren of a burlesque girl. Men and women alike are completely enamored with her whenever she takes to the stage, but we never actually see her dance (with I understand from an artistic standpoint), and there is some awkwardness about her that just doesn't make me think that she would actually be so impressive.
As for the effects, well, that and the soundtrack are the reasons the film rated a 6 on my scale. I am the first to admit that I am beginning to expect a lot from my directors these days and tend to nit-pick at the little things. On the whole, the film was extremely enjoyable and I will own it. But I am left in worry over the monstrous use of effects in all action films lately. Every fantasy scene in this film was extravagant in an awesome way, but the robot scene left me thinking that just because you have all kinds of tools in a toolbox doesn't mean you need all of them to hang a picture. I enjoy the use of modern effects, but there is over-the-top, and there is overdone. I hope directors don't get too carried away and take away from the enjoyability because they've thrown EVERY trick at us in one 30 second scene. Sometimes less is more.