There's not much that needs to be done in order to make a good action movie. Usually the simpler the story, the better. Because the most you should highlight is (you guess it...) the action! Obviously it helps if the plot is good and makes sense, even if it's simple. Hell, look at "John Wick" with its straight-foward and kind of silly plot; it's a massive hit and with no plans of stopping. But there's a director who by some bizarre reason can't manage to make a good action movie, and it's Zack Snyder.
Zack Snyder is a very well known director, producer and screenwriter who made a few of these hit movies last decade like: "Justice League", "300" and what I come to talk about today: "Sucker Punch". By all means this is not his worse movie, but that doesn't mean that it's a good movie.
"Sucker Punch" is about a girl called "Baby Doll" who is interned in an insane asylum and decides to team up with 4 other girls to escape. To cope with the stress of being in a mental hospital, "Baby Doll" not only imagines she is in a brothel, but also as having adventures in several different places in time (feudal Japan, WWI, a medieval castle with a dragon, and the future with robots). Right off the bat you can notice the plot's a little convoluted, when too many things are going on at the same time, you tend to lose sense of what's happening.
Zack Snyder seems to make the same mistakes in most of his movies. For starters, he values beauty over substance, takes some great shots with the camera but his stories are messy. Plot wise, why make "Baby Doll" imagine 2 levels of scenarios to cope? Either run with the brothel or the fantasy locations, but definitely not both. Also, Snyder went wild with the yellow hue in the film. I know you have to differentiate reality from imagination but why does it have to look that ugly? And finally there's his obsessions with closeups and slo-mos. If I see another closeup of a bullet firing it'll be too soon. It looked cool back when we first saw it in "300" but now it's in every movie and I'm absolutely sick of it.
I don't want to end this without talking about the good things of this movie. Firstly, I liked the actors they chose. Emily Browning was perfect as "Baby Doll", she's cute and looks innocent but with a dark side. Carla Gugino was very good as "Dr. Gorski", just trying to do her best however she could for her patients; and finally there's Oscar Isaac, beautiful as ever, everytime he was on screen he just commanded it with just his presence.
The special effects on this movie are quite good, considering this movie is from 2011. During the fight scenes the actors didn't look like they were hitting nothing, and even though it was giant samurais and steampunk german soldiers, they didn't look half bad. Also I'm a sucker for dragons and mechas, and they looked good here, they felt heavy if you can say such a thing about CGI.
And finally, let's not forget the music. Oh my God, the music is so good here. I loved that they used one song for every "mission", it felt like a frame, encapsulating each part perfectly. Whenever a song started, you just knew something good was going to happen. My only wish is that the writers and director were as careful with the story as they were with the music.
Overall, Sucker Punch is an ok story with entertaining and flashy action scenes, good actors, and great music; it's perfect for watching it with friends when there's nothing else to watch, but definitely not the best action movie around.
Here's the trailer:
Written by Confused_Coquí
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