Sucker Punch = Frontrunner for worst movie of the year.

Rating: 2/10 (18 April 2011)

Well, April is often known as the time of year in film where truly great movies finally start to appear into the mainstream... so it's only ironic that I should be dragged along to the claptrap March release that is Sucker Punch.
The film centers on BabyDoll (Played by Emily Browning), a girl who is framed for murder by her evil stepfather, and sent to an insane asylum to be lobotomized in a matter of five days. She concocts a plan with four other inmates (Played by Jamie Chung, Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens and Jena Malone) to find five items to help them escape through the asylum's dance underworld, and imaginary worlds so anachronistic and ridiculous in explanation, you'd swear I was shouting deleted paragraphs from The Divine Comedy.
The film is directed by Zack Snyder, the man best known for mediocre action films such as Watchmen and 300, he also co-wrote it with a friend of his named Steve Shibuya. The film is an obvious ploy to objectify women masked by half hearted empowerment submorals, but I was hoping the film could be as interesting as it's somewhat clever five minute opening... but, to bring up Dante again, Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. I like to watch whole movies before passing unfair final judgment on them, but had I known what I know now, I would have walked out after 35 minutes.
It's easy enough to blame awkward pacing, and a nonsensically sloppy screenplay, but what's most disappointing is the performances. The film has a talented collection of attractive twenty-somethings performing as its five main characters, but they all can't get past being unexpressive robots, except for Jena Malone, who plays Rocket, the only character in the film I even cared about. It also wastes the older talent, such as Carla Gugino speaking in an inconsistent Polish accent as Madam Gorski, and Scott Glenn as the Wiseman, the wisest filler character to ever grace the silver screen.
Even the technical standpoints are lacking. Snyder's signature ultra slow motion shots grow from tedious to unbearable halfway through the film, the sound mix and design is overly bombarding, and even the visual work on the creatures and environments in the imagination sequences are garish, sub par exercises in effects animation.
With a final rating of * out of ****, Sucker Punch is the current frontrunner for worst movie of the year.