A Review of Zac Snyder's Sucker Punch

Oh Yes, One More Thing --   Sucker Punch Has No Plot

The theme of perception and alternative realities is pervasive in today's cinema. Some recent examples include; "Caprica" (2009), "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011), "Inception" (2010), "Shutter Island" (2010), and to some degree, "Black Swan" (2010). Going back a bit further in film history to 1998's "What Dreams May Come,"  "The Matrix" (1999) and further back to "Pink Floyd's The Wall" (1982) are a series of films with the common theme of escaping into one's mind while searching for solace from the pain of reality. Although the movies are a way to escape the boredom or the realities of everyday life, audiences have a tendency to want their fantasy films, or their escapes to have some attachment to the real world, however slight, in order to affirm a sense of being believable. "Sucker Punch" stars Emily Browning ("Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" - 2004), Abbie Cornish ("Limitless" - 2011), Oscar Isaac ("Robin Hood" - 2010), Jena Malone ("The Ruins" - 2008), Carla Gugino ("Spy Kids" - 2001), and Scott Glenn ("Secretariat" - 2010). The MPAA rates this film PG-13.

"Sucker Punch is a totally incomprehensible over the top set of dream sequences that thinly disguise a pretentious, but weak, morality tale aimed at the younger 'hip' video game audiences. Quite frankly, initially when watching the trailers for "Sucker Punch", I was thrilled to see what I considered was a virtual world filled with vehicles, weapons, and fashion styles of various periods meshed seamlessly together in a way that I believe only Tim Burton can achieve. Unfortunately, what Zac Snyder presented is a disjointed tale of a girl whose grasp of sanity is deeply in question from the first scene, to the last. Also in question is Snyder's comprehension of what works for a story. Shifting between an oddly tinted color sequences and black and white images, "Sucker Punch" follows Baby Doll (Browning), whose mother dies, leaving her and her younger sister in the care of her evil stepfather. The stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) is a lecherous greedy bastard who first wants to have his way with Baby Doll, but ends up, instead, with her younger sister. In an effort to protect her sister, Baby Doll shoots her stepfather and inadvertently kills her sister. Sent away to an insane asylum, Baby Doll retreats from her personal hell, by slipping into psychedelic trance while dancing an exotic raw sexually charged dance sequence while dreaming of a fantasy world where she and her friends are the heroines.

Like Nolan's "Inception," Snyder provides several levels of Baby Doll's ability to perceive her reality. The first level is that instead, of being dropped off at an insane asylum by her step dad, she was dropped off at nightclub/brothel by a priest. In this reality, it is her duty to dance and please the customers. In this level, the color pallet that Snyder uses is more the look of a color tinted black and white photograph. What could potentially become an exciting story with a purpose devolves into a poor shadow of the traditional test and quest heroine journey. What Snyder does is creates several Sci-Fi music videos that feature Baby Doll, Sweet Pea (Cornish), and Rocket (Malone). Oscar Isaac stars as Blue Jones, a high ranking orderly in Baby Doll's reality, and the owner of the nightclub in her Brothel fantasy. Tying all these visually spectacular music videos together is Scott Glenn as the Mentor. Baby Doll first meets him during her first trip into her second level of alternate reality (AR). In this version, we find Glenn as the Mentor in a Buddhist monastery and tells her that she must acquire the following items back in her first level of AR: A knife, fire, a map, a key, and of course the last item is a mystery for Baby Doll to discover at the end. Carla Gugino plays Dr. Vera Gorski who in this film doubles as the head psychiatrist of the institution, and the dance instructor at the brothel. Her job is to teach the girls to survive the hell-hole of the brothel/asylum.

Baby Doll's fellowship of conspirators includes Rocket, Amber (Jamie Chung) as the getaway driver, and reluctantly Sweet Pea, who as the oldest, is as the de facto leader of the girls and the common sense anchor of the group. In the fantasy worlds of Baby Doll's mind, which is a combination of Science Fiction and Fantasy, seems out of place, as Baby Doll doesn't strike me as a nerdy geek of a girl. In fact, Baby Doll appears more like Brittany Spears look alike in all of her perceptions of reality. I am understandably confused and am disturbed by a certain lack of period accuracy. The girl's hair styles are wrong, instead of looking like a woman from the 1950's; they look like Victoria's Secret models. The exceptions are Gugino's and Isaac's brothel scenes, which seem correct. The fedora is in fashion once again like in Caprica and "Brylcreem" is also back in style. An unlikely scene for the 1950's is the possibility of a plain paper copier being used in a brothel. I saw a guard wearing IPods ear buds.

With "Sucker Punch,"  Zac Snyder creates a visually stunning world, over the top action sequences, while unable to construct a story that has any meaning, or a theme of any sort. In our present world of video games and Facebook, our perception of reality is already terribly confused, blurred, and shadowy. Zack Snyder, whilst on LSD allows his better judgment to lose its way in the fluid world of CGI so deeply, that the audience sits and ponders if the resultant film is artistic genius, or just downright stupid. I choose the latter, and recommend "Sucker Punch" for DVD rental on a day where you are incredibly bored, or already in an altered state of reality.

Movie Data

Genre:  Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Year:  2011

Staring: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Oscar Isaac, Carla Gugino, Scott Glenn

Director: Zack Snyder
Writer(s): Zack Snyder, Steve Shibuya

Producer(s):Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder
Rating: PG-13

Review originally published in 2/16/2012 on Yahoo! Voices

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

left me here alone today! Now his spirits, for a change,
my own wishes shall obey!
Having memorized
what to say and do,
with my powers of will I can
do some witching, too!

S trike two for Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney this summer. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,"  languishing in theaters for over 54 weeks and only making $326,717,852 as of this writing. During Prince of Persia's opening weekend it made about $30 million compared to Sorcerer’s Apprentice's $17,619,622. Now the question should be asked, is the The Sorcerer's Apprentice a bad film? Starring Nicolas Cage, who worked with Bruckheimer before in two "National Treasure" films, both films combined to make about $805 million with about half of that in foreign ticket sales. So perhaps this is just par for the course. Co-starring in this fantasy action film is Jay Baruchel the voice of Hiccup in "How to Train Your Dragon," and "She's Out of My League" as the apprentice to Cage's Master Wizard Balthazar Blake. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is rated PG, but is generally safe for kids over 10.

Basing this story on the Arthurian legend of Merlin the Magician, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal set the back story in Britain circa 740 AD. Disney presents us with a new telling the story of Merlin (James A. Stephens) verses Morgana (Alice Krige), aka Morgan le Fey, and their battle between good and evil. Concocting three apprentices of Merlin's, director Jon Turteltaub, quickly shows how the betrayal of Horvath (Alfred Molina), against Balthazar (Cage) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci), sets the stage for the rest of the story. Jumping to ten years ago, we meet the 10-year-old Dave who is on a field trip to inner city New York. On this pivotal day, Dave passes a not to the 10 year old Becky, asking is she would be his girlfriend. Cute huh? Unable to get a reply from the girl because of a gust a wind blows his note halfway across town, leading Dave directly to Balthazar’s Arcana Cabana where the young Dave meets both Balthazar and Horvath's characters. After some initial Harry Potter like battling, both magician's are locked in an ugly looking antique vase while Dave escapes. Confronted by his school class, claiming that the place is on fire and that there were wizards fighting inside, is made to look like a kid with some severe mental problems. Jump 10 more years to Dave (Baruchel), who is now physics major at NYU, nerdy and introverted as ever. Here is where the story becomes typical and unoriginal, as Dave is torn between wizardry and for Becky (Teresa Palmer). Meeting up once again with Horvath, and Balthazar, Dave starts his apprenticeship as a sorcerer.

There is nothing wrong with The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a film and as a story. The acting is fine, not over the top, Cage has had better hair days but in this case, he is passable, Jay Baruchel is goofy and nerdy in a loveable type of way. Teresa Palmer (The Grudge 2, Wolf Creek) as Becky was too compliant and uninteresting. Alice Krige is not in the film long enough to show any of her true villainy as she did in 1996's "Star Trek: First Contact", nor is Monica Bellucci on screen long enough to evoke any sensuality. Or perhaps Bellucci's limited screen appearance was to keep the PG rating. As usual, the villain does shine in films such as these, and Alfred Molina does just that. If anything his performance as a villain was on par with Doc Oct from his Spider-Man days. Toby Kebbell as the punk-rock magician Drake Stone was typical well acted and boring. The funny sequences, and there are quite seemed timed and cute but nothing hilarious.

Unfortunately, the visual effects were fantastic. What is wrong with fantastic? Nothing, except fantastic is the new ordinary, and we have come to expect the imagery that we see in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." With four or five, "Harry Potter" films, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians," "The Last Airbender," and "The Prince of Persia", visual effects of this quality are to be expected, and there didn't seem anything new in this film that I haven't seen in the last few months. Do I sound jaded? Perhaps I do. Jon Turteltaub is an experienced director and like Nimród Antal ("Armored," "Predators"), competent, but not exciting. Want to explore new territory? Then perhaps try Christopher Nolan or M. Night Shyamalan, as they seem willing to take risks.

The best part of the film and unfortunately the smallest is the reprise of the Fantasia sequence of the dancing brooms. That part in Fantasia itself was inspired Goethe's poem by the same name. Overall, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Shrek Forever After, is passable by adults if you have to take your kids, otherwise I would wait for the DVD version.

Der Zauberlehrling - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Movie Data

Genre: Fantasy Adventure
Year: 2010
Staring: Nicolas Cage, Alfred Molina, Jay Baruchel, Teresa Palmer, Toby Kebbell, Monica Bellucci, Alice Krige
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Producer(s): Jerry Bruckheimer
Writer: Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Matt Lopez
Rating: PG
Running Time: 109 minutes
Release Date: 7/14/2010

Drag Me to Hell: Director Sam Raimi, Not a Horror Director

Sam Raimi by Gage_Skidmore

Sam Raimi is a multi-talented director who can direct Horror, Fantasy or any genre that Mr. Raimi wants to, and he can do it well.  With Guillermo Del Toro's departure from "The Hobbit," Sam Raimi is one of those directors that Hollywood insiders are buzzing about taking over the reigns.  Raimi's outstanding success with the "Spider-Man" series leaves him as one of the top contenders for the fantasy genre prequel to Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.  Raimi, also pulled out of directing a fourth "Spider-Man" leaving Sony and the film's new director, Marc Webb to come up with a reboot of the franchise, that I think is too soon for the audience to forget Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst's faces as Peter Parker and Mary Watson.  Raimi, on the hand is bringing the Warcraft universe to theaters scheduled for a release sometime in 2013.  In a press release dated July 22, 2009, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced that the reason they picked Raimi was because, "... in the course of his career, clearly demonstrated a genius for developing and adapting existing fictional universes for mainstream audiences while staying true to the spirit of the original content."

Horror and Fantasy 

Starting your career making horror films tends to stereotype a director early in Hollywood.  People have a tendency to go with stereotypes until proven otherwise.  Returning to his roots in 2009's "Drag Me to Hell," fans thought Raimi was back in the horror directing business.  "Drag Me to Hell," starring Alison Lohman as a woman cursed to be dragged to hell by a Dybbuk, a devil-like creature.  Fans and critics alike chanted "Evil Dead," while watching Drag Me to Hell, and considering it his best horror film since The "Evil Dead" trilogy.  I tend to agree.

The 51-year-old writer, producer, actor, and director works in all genres well, but does an even better job with the fantasy genre than anything else.  Starting with the classic "The Evil Dead" in 1981 the then 22-year-old director already had several short films under his belt.  Three short films dealing with subject of murder ("Murder" - 1977), horror ("Within the Woods" - 1978), and more horror ("Clockwork" - 1978), gave Raimi a resume that would eventually get him the financing to create the film that got the young director noticed.  Staying busy between the release of "The Evil Dead" in 1981 and his break away from the horror genre film Crimewave in 1985, Raimi was busy appearing in small roles like 1985's "Spies Like Us," the Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd spy spoof, and in buddy Josh Becker's Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter in 1982.  Returning to his horror-child in 1987, Raimi wrote, produced and directed Evil Dead II, providing even more horror and adding some comic slapstick to the Dead franchise.  Always with his friend Bruce Campbell, Raimi continued in 1992 with Army of Darkness, taking Campbell back to the Middle Ages for cheesy fun.  Financially, The Evil Dead Trilogy is an resume of increasing financial success not only in horror but also in the fantasy genre.  Making only $2.4 million on "The Evil Dead," Raimi's production budget was $375,000.  "Evil Dead" II had a production budget of $3.6 million and grossed $5,923,044, not quite doubling their money but enough to call the film successful.  The third film in the series, "Army of Darkness," made the most money with $11,502,976 and $21.5 million worldwide while generating a cult following.

Comedy

In 1985, Raimi directed the Cohen Brothers' film "Crimewave."  During release, the film was not only a critical but also a financial failure.  Raimi and friends were not used to having a studio breathing down their necks and making decisions for him.  The major financiers of "Crimewave," Embassy Pictures, held creative control over Raimi's head on choice of actors, actor's salaries, and script changes.  Sam Raimi learned that, as a director, one needs to have ones act together when dealing with major studios in the production of a film.  If the film was a financial failure, then it was Raimi's greatest opportunity as a director to learn the art of dealing with the studios.

Science fiction, a tortured superhero, and a spaghetti western. 

After completing "Evil Dead II," Raimi creating his own tortured superhero, filmed "Darkman" and released it in 1990.  Starring Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand, "Darkman" is less horror and more of a sci-fi crime thriller.  Faring better than any of Raimi's films to date, "Darkman" made $48,878,502 in worldwide ticket sales, "Darkman" was what Raimi needed.  Now known as a director of horror, fantasy, and comedy, Raimi moved on to a new genre for him, the western.  1995's "The Quick and the Dead," starring Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, and Sharon Stone.  Receiving lackluster reviews and attendance, the film, however, is noteworthy for performances by Russell Crowe and Gene Hackman.  "The Quick and the Dead" had a $35 million production budget the film only brought in $18,636,537 domestically.

Mainstream ventures

 An adaptation of Scott Brown's novel, "A Simple Plan," is neither horror nor comedy and a new direction for Raimi.  Starring Bill Paxton, Bridget Fonda, and Billy Bob Thornton, is a story about three men who find several million dollars in a crashed airplane.  The film is a character study of how decent people do terrible things when money comes into their lives.  Well received by the press, "A Simple Plan" didn't fare as well at the box office.  The film's reported budget of $30 million, only made $16,316,273.  By the end of the decade, Raimi added romance to his range of directorial competence with "For Love of the Game" in 1999.  Kevin Costner stars in Michael Shaara's ("The Killer Angels"/"Gettysburg") adaptation of his novel of the same name.  Raimi directed this drama of love, of baseball, and the coming to terms with one's priority in life; the film didn't fare well at the box office with only $46,112,640 in worldwide sales, despite the film 80 million dollar budget.  Directing Billy Bob Thornton's "The Gift" in 2000, closing out the century with a mystery thriller with a touch of horror, Raimi and Thornton garnered little success financially or critically.  "The Gift" received less than favorable reviews from critics and made $44,567,606 at the box office.

Comic book action hero

During the 80s and 90s from a profit and loss statement, Raimi's horror pictures make more money than his mainstream films; however, Sam Raimi is just getting started.  In 2002 through 2007, Sam Raimi directed the phenomenally successful "Spider-Man" franchise through three films reaching a combined total of $2,496,346,518.00.  With each "Spider-Man" film averaging around $832 million each, the franchise is Raimi's most financially successful films to date.

Television Executive Producer

Since attaining a level of prominence in Hollywood, Raimi has kept his attentions on many genres as producer, and writer.  During the 90s, Raimi was the executive producer for TV series like "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys"  and "Xena: Warrior Princess," and two direct to video "Darkman" films.  During the last decade, Raimi served as executive producer on science fiction shows as "Cleopatra 2525" and was the producer of 2004's "The Grudge" and in 2006 "The Grudge 2."

Real Horror Directors

Compared to Wes Craven, Sam Raimi's resume as a horror director comes up short. Craven with 29 directorial credits and only 2 films that stray entirely outside of the horror thriller genre, Wes Craven is a better contender for the horror director title.  Craven's films include the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise, the "Scream" franchise, and the 70's classics "The Last House on the Left," and "The Hills Have Eyes."  

Director John Carpenter has 30 directorial credits; however, one can discount "Dark Star" (1974), "Assault on Precinct 13" (1976), "Elvis" (1979), "Big Trouble in Little China" (1986), and "Starman" (1984) as horror films, leaving 25 films still in the count. 

A director with only one film of the 19 he directed in the last 40 years not listed under the horror genre, a true horror director is George A. Romero.  Starting like Raimi with the low-budget "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968, Romero has consistently put out three horror films in the last four decades.

Sam Raimi is not horror director but a brilliant film director who can make horror films, along with any genre that producers wish to hand to him.  Raimi is commercially better at the action fantasy genre than he is with the horror-thriller genre.  When it comes to horror films, Raimi and friends inject a unique humor that make his horror films stand out from directors like Craven and Carpenter.  "Drag Me to Hell" was an exception to his typical campy "The Evil Dead" style of horror film, as "Drag Me to Hell" was truly scary proving that when he wants to Raimi can do horror just as well as the next horror director

Originally published on 6/15/2010 on Associated Content by Robert Barbere.