Explosively appalling

Rating: 1/10 (5 December 2012)

Sucker Punch fails so spectacularly in so many ways it's actually kind of interesting. How could an acclaimed, visually accomplished director making the ultimate geek fantasy with tens of millions of dollars end up creating something this rubbish?
First, the characters, or lack thereof. The girls simply have no personality and differ from each other in no other ways than height and cup size. They hardly show any emotion and there's nothing to show what kind of people they are. The same applies to all the other characters with the possible exception of the villain, but only because someone has to be the bad guy. The acting is as good as the characters, i.e. terrible, but you're so detached from the movie anyway it hardly matters.
Second, the visuals. One would assume on the basis of the trailer that the movie would at least evoke visual interest, but fails even at that. It's simply too much: once you've seen one amazing scenario you kind of zone out and it all becomes white noise. Zack Snyder's love for slo-mo is at its very worst here: the movie feels like it's been directed by a 12-year old who can't sit still for 5 seconds without going "PHWOOOOAARR ISN'T THAT COOL?!" And since all the visuals are done with CGI, none of the action sequences have any physicality or tension to them. It's about as exciting as watching marshmallows getting dropped on a silk mattress in 0,1 gravity.
Third, the soundtrack. All I can remember is a cacophony of electric guitars and techno beats. In conjunction with the visuals it becomes simply too overwhelming, going in one ear and coming out the other.
These are only the main problems of the film, but the way they combine and create new problems is quite amazing. The end result is one of the stupidest, most juvenile and boring films released this century.
Recommendation: I can't recommend this film to anyone. Not even movie masochists, because unlike other atrocious sludge like Sex and the City 2, SPunch isn't even painful to watch, it's simply boring. Boring beyond words.