No Excuses

Rating: 2/10 (26 March 2011)

In the past, one could've been forgiven for thinking that Zack Snyder had a measure of talent. His remakes and adaptations had been enjoyable movies at the very least, even his polarizing big screen version of "Watchmen" could be admired for its effort and faithfulness. Without seeing what original ideas could spark from his imagination, Snyder fans could always argue that we've yet to see his full potential. Now we have.
Sucker Punch is very light on words. Its first line of dialog is heard fifteen minutes after the opening frame and the characters don' talk much for the first half hour. Thank God for it because once you hear that first line, you'd wish Snyder had stuck to making this entire thing a music video with explosions. I'd offer examples of the gems that are sprinkled through this work of cinematic genius, but after eight hours my brain's gone and erased every memory of the few spoken lines in order to preserve my sanity. Suffice to say that Snyder appears to comes from the Lucas school of screen writing. Step 1) State the obvious. Step 2) Make everyone talk like badly translated manga characters. Step 3) Squash all ambiguity so the silly audience won't be confused.
The horrific dialog is the most obvious sign of an incompetent writer, but that's not the only problem. A bad writer with a bad idea will never get made. A bad writer with a good idea will get re-written. A bad writer with a good idea who also has money to produce will get his script made as is, to hell with any criticism. Because it's a BAD writer with a good idea, he or she will magnify every flaw with poor or stereotypical execution and corrupt any good by being too obtuse. Such as the case here. The story operates on three levels of reality, the insane asylum, the burlesque club, and the violent world. The first is absolute reality, the third is the protagonist's imagination (I think), and the second is never explained.
In fact, for those who thought that "Inception" was confusing, at the very least it jumped between three levels of reality without confusing us as to why they're there. "Sucker Punch" in the meantime, lost me on its very first dive and then keeps diving, hoping that the endless amounts of skin and stylized action would make me forget the lack of explanation. It didn't work. By removing the context of what the main character is doing and by never explaining whether her friends are actually insane, we don't whether or not to root for her. In fact, in the very act of NOT explaining, Snyder's managed to make all of his fantastic actions scenes utterly meaningless. Why do we care that she's fighting?
Sucker Punch could've been something great. Not Oscar worthy perhaps, but with little effort it might've been the most entertaining film of the year, raked in at the box office, and become a fan classic. It still might rake in at the box office, but it will never see the light of day again. Zack Snyder had all the money he could've asked for, a great cast that wanted to do something good, a production and effects team that wanted to do something good... and instead he made this. An incoherent, overblown, excruciatingly cheesy fallacy of a movie that fails at the most basic aspects of storytelling. No excuses, Snyder.