When it comes to style, writer/director Zack Snyder is pure genius.
When he’s punching effects buttons, greasing up the camera dolly wheels or putting his camera in ungodly and uncomfortable places and positions, creating cardboard cut-out, other worldly sets and creatures, and pasting an ultra-loud rock soundtrack on top of it all, no one is better.
-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.
As Snyder did with Watchmen and 300, Sucker Punch is painfully noisy and packed with pandemonium. After 30 minutes of visual and auditory abuse, to some it will also be overly obnoxious.
Now if you think my opening description of Sucker Punch is overwritten, wait until you see the movie.
Emily Browning is Baby Doll. Her wicked step-father wants her late mom’s money. The guy is a total creep and first tries to molest Baby Doll and when that doesn’t succeed, he goes after her little sister. Baby Doll tries to shoot the guy, kills baby sister and is institutionalized in a mental ward.
Her immediate goal — bust out.
Baby Doll is an appropriate name. She’s gorgeous, especially when frocked in fabulous and revealing outfits. So are her inmate conspirators and the actresses that play them: Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Julie Chung.
This is titillating stuff aimed at drooling teen boys and young men.
Watch carefully because the switch out of the gloomy institution is deceptive and can be confusing. Once incarcerated, Baby Doll discovers the institution doubles as a dance hall and — though not mentioned but much hinted at — brothel.
The young women do “favors” and dance for icky old men and greasy slime balls. Baby Doll’s dance takes her to other worlds where Scott Glenn’s wise man with no name directs her to find the keys that will help her and her new friends escape the institution.
Each dance is so tantalizing that it distracts the staff and her friends are able to steal the items the wise man mentions. We never see her dance. Each number has Baby Doll and friends slipping off to other places. They do battle in World War I trenches, and on another world where a dragon’s baby has a key, and later on a train packed with bombs and headed for the city and so on.
As always, Snyder’s sets, images and action-sequences are superb. They’re cartoonish in a graphic novel sense, semi-animated in blacks and whites with a different color or colors emphasized in each scene. His choreographed camera movement and editing are intense. He swoops down on scenes, then up. The motion is slow, then super-fast.
The battle scenes are a blast to watch, and they are what gets Sucker Punch a positive rating.
Snyder’s film is intriguing and his style stunning. Sucker Punch rocks and rolls at blitzkrieg speed. It’s what passes for plot that brings Snyder’s express to a screeching halt.
It just can’t keep up. Not even close.
Mr. Movie rating: 3 1/2 stars
Rated PG-13 for very mature themes and considerable violence and sexual overtones. It opens Friday, March 25 at Regal’s Columbia Center 8 and at the Fairchild Cinemas 12.
5 stars/4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen
4 stars / 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it's your type of movie.
3 stars / 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on DVD.
2 stars / 1 star: Don't bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself
