Snyder film has comic pop, lacks plot line punch

If you want to watch impossibly hot girls in lingerie fight robot samurai, giant dragons and… If you want to watch impossibly hot girls in lingerie fight robot samurai, giant dragons and zombie Nazis, go see director Zack Snyder’s newest film “Sucker Punch.” If you like cerebral commentary on the power of the mind, stay home.

“Sucker Punch” premiered on Friday. It is yet another visually stunning addition to the pop-comic film genre and Snyder’s body of work. Yet it is considerably shallow and underdeveloped.

Snyder had a real opportunity to make this film comment on society — or at least to have a strong female lead. Generally adaptation is Snyder’s strong points — he directed remakes of  “Watchmen” and “300,” which were both derived from popular comics, as well as “Dawn of the Dead” — but this time he helped co-write the original screenplay for “Sucker Punch.” He stepped out of his comfort zone, though perhaps not enough. Was this a wise career move, considering the popularity of his adaptation work?

In some ways, yes.

The film is the story of a young woman sent to a mental hospital by her stepfather. In the time period and setting — which is unclear because of the anachronistic music and some props — lobotomy is still common. The heroine, Baby Doll, has five days until hers. Her mental institution also happens to be a brothel, where she is forced to dance for the club owner.

To escape the frightful reality of her imprisonment, she falls into the fantasy world that she has created. In this world her obstacles are the robot samurai, giant dragons and zombie Nazis, but the real villains of the film are in her real life. When she does something in her imaginary world, it affects her life in the real world.

And from the start, Snyder misses chances for commentary.

It’s unclear whether he’s trying to highlight women’s struggles or whether he’s actually degrading them. While sex is included in many films, the way in which it is depicted in Snyder’s work in particular can be a cause of discomfort.

“300” is a prime example of this. The gratuitous sex scene at the film’s start and the enslavement of a young girl as the “oracle” do little for the plot. The Queen in “300” is depicted as a strong-minded woman, but she still has to resort to offering her body as payment for a favor from a senator.

“Watchmen” follows writer Alan Moore’s placement of sex scenes in the graphic novel, but the detail in the film far exceeds the mostly-implied sex of the book.

“Sucker Punch” employs a similar formula. In the film, Baby Doll and her fellow patients are only useful when falling into the role of sexual objects for men, particularly because of the brothel element. For example, the heroine only enters her fantasy world when she’s doing a sexy dance for the club owner, which certainly begs the question of whether all this sex is necessary Snyder missed the chance to break free of his stereotypical female characterization and still create an action-packed, IMAX-worthy movie.

He also misses a chance to talk about the power of the mind in overcoming bad situations. In the beginning of the 110-minute film, the narrator poses a series of questions about who is the angel in the film, whose story this really is. After all of the action in the plot, the audience is left wondering: “Well, whose was it?” Without explaining all of the three different levels of worlds, Snyder misses the mark on talking about Baby Doll’s cognitive state. Abandoning this gift of mental power further serves to weaken Baby Doll’s strength as a woman.

Although some fans complain about digressions from original texts and the exploitation  of women, the visual aspects of Snyder’s films are artful, well-done and set him apart. It does some work to redeem Snyder’s complete and total lack of depth.

The director relies heavily on computer-generated imagery, and the result is a product that the viewer knows is fantasy. In this way, “Sucker Punch” is great fun. The girls land from jumps in an action-anime style that would be impossible in real life. They are thrown great distances and only suffer a few scrapes, looking sexily disheveled. The villains of the fantasy world are almost comically grotesque. Michael Bay finally has a competitor for explosions.

This is where Snyder succeeds in his work. Other more popular directors like Christopher Nolan use complex sets to make the effects as real as possible. The use of mostly real sets can give the viewer, if only subconsciously, the feeling that scenes portrayed in movies are perhaps possible.

The unbelievable CGI technique works for Snyder’s subject matter, however. The comics and tales he draws inspiration from lend themselves to over-done and saturated visuals with striking color palates unachievable without computer-generated imagery. Snyder is trying for a different effect. He wants the reality to be absent, like Baby Doll in “Sucker Punch.”

*Editor’s note: A change was made to reflect the fact that “Dawn of the Dead” is not based off of a comic on April 4.