Blu-ray Review: “Sucker Punch”

Posted by staticblog

on July 14, 2011M at 10:25 am

Rating: 64

A great technician with a strong visual sense, Zack Snyder is one of Hollywood’s best maximalists and, since breaking through with his surprisingly good remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” the boyish 45-year-old built an impressive resume by attacking as many genres as he could in rapid succession. “Sucker Punch” has enough visual ideas for four movies, and it’s not too surprising that Snyder decided to cram them all into this rapid-fire fever dream about a teenager trying literally and figuratively to escape a ghastly mental ward. It is the most comic book-inspired film of 2011 that did not actually come from a comic book, an experiment that works only fitfully but is as interesting for its failures as it is for its successes.

Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is framed for her sister’s death by her evil stepfather and sent to an asylum where, as a coping mechanism, she develops layers of fantasy to sustain herself. First, she and Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and sisters Sweet Pea and Rocket (Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone) are all being exploited by the asylum in a perverse burlesque club. Second, as Baby Doll plots their escape, she falls into second-level fantasies that power her through to freedom. For these sequences, Snyder creates baroque visual conceits, including an anime-inspired duel with a giant samurai and a steampunk-infused World War I battle.

“Sucker Punch” received a critical drubbing but is nevertheless worth the time and effort put into the “Maximum Movie Mode” function on the Blu-ray, in which Snyder periodically steps into the frame to discuss how some of the more complicated shots were executed. It’s hard not to be swayed by Snyder’s enthusiasm and he is to be commended for following his creativity to an illogical extreme. Not many mainstream, big-budget directors are given such latitude. Snyder’s next film is “Man of Steel,” and Warner Bros. will undoubtedly keep a tighter reign on him for that project. With that in mind, “Sucker Punch” plays like a forum for Snyder to get crazy ideas out of his system before it’s time to toe the line for a make-or-break “Superman” reboot.

— Lang

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