Movie Review: Sucker Punch

Has there been a movie with more anticipation than Zak Snyder's Sucker Punch? I mean this movie is going to be like every fanboy's wet dream, right? You've seen the eye catching stills, you've watched the incredible looking trailer dozens of times and now the movie finally arrives and... well, hmmm.

This review is going to be a little different than my usual because I really don't know what to think about this film. I want to like it, I really do, and sometimes I do, but there is so much wrong with the movie that I find myself leaning the other way as well.

For starters, I thought the special effects were a little less special than I was expecting. Zak Snyder is sorta known for his visual prowess and all that but there's nothing here we haven't seen before and to be honest, a lot of these effects look pretty poorly done. The dragon, for one thing, looks far, far worse than say the dragon in Reign of Fire which was made nine frickin' years ago! The three giant Japanese warriors in the film's first battle sequence were also terribly animated. On the other hand, the part with the German steam soldiers was absolutely fantastic.

In the end, this film suffers from too much animation done way too poorly for my tastes. Now don't get me wrong, I like animation to a degree but it should not leave you thinking, "That's lousy CGI," while you're watching it.

As far as the story goes, there's a good premise here but I felt no connection with characters whatsoever. Sure, they were nice to look at, but at the end of the day I wasn't emotionally involved in Sucker Punch at all. It felt like I was just sitting there watching it. I hate to say it, but that's pretty much what I was expecting anyway, after all, Zak Snyder movies are more style than substance and by now we should all know that going in. What I was excited about was that this was going to be an audio and visual assault on the senses and ultimately while it was a spectacle, it was a poorly executed one.

Sadly, Sucker Punch gets **1/2 out of *****.