Zack Snyder is Not A Good Director (So fanboys, shut up!)

I'm going to say this because I had enough. I'm about to say this because he's part of the new generation of directors who have styles reminiscent of well known arthouse and Hollywood directors like Quentin Tarantino or Jean Luc Goddard. Well, I'm not talking about arthouse, I'm talking about Zack Snyder, the filmmaker almost everybody trusted but decided to turn their back for some unknown reason.

Sucker Punch - This is a movie KO'd

C- (2.8)

Picture this. You're a 20 year old girl whose sent to an asylum after your stepfather framed you for murdering your sister and attempting to rape you before he does. In that mental asylum you're trained by a douche as a burlesque dancer given that half the asylum is a burlesque club and as you do, you enter a fantasy that involves destroying everything so you can escape from that asylum.

In an acronym, WTF?!?!

That is the entire plot of Sucker Punch about a group of mental patients/erotic dancers led by Babydoll (Emily Browning) going into a range of fantasies to find four valuable items not only free themselves from their pains, but also to escape the mental institution they're situated. The asylum is headed by an Eastern European psychiatrist (Carla Gugino) and Blu (Oscar Issacs)

When it comes to director Zack Snyder, it is truly polarising. Some people love or hate his visual style. Some say it's boring, others find it more artistic. But I don't get the entire hatred against him by geeks and internet critics because Snyder used to direct the magnificent yet flawed graphic novel adaptation Watchmen and the well-crafted animation Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Gahoole.

In here however Snyder just truly messes up.

Let me requote the last sentence because to say this is truly a mess is an understatement. It's not entirely awful. It's just terrible. First of all, full marks for Snyder crafting every action sequence to such a high level of art. It's brilliantly cinematographed and as much as you hate Snyder, you'll no doubt know that his movies are somewhat visually stimulating. Unfortunately every sequence feels like a video game.

But this movie is never stimulating to the entire point that it's not even a movie. This is a poorly acted, poorly plotted and poorly placed piece that has gave you no point to why you should be even watching this film. It feels like Snyder is so obsessed with his "achievement" for directing Watchmen that he just brings in the most unnessary elements here. As soon as we entered the lives of these girls, the tackiness shows and becomes a watermark in the history of contemporary cinema. It has no plot, no characters and  the action becomes so ludicrous.

When you have a cast of young and really hot actresses that includes Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone and Vanessa Hudgens and assign these women to Snyder, to me, I'll be damned. He's never a director of actresses since all of the heroines are terrible as they have no character, no growth and no emotion. Seeing Carla Gugino whipping up a phony European accent as a burlesque teacher shows that she's offered the most ridiculous characters to be played since Nicholas Cage. Not even Oscar Issacs can help. I just hated him playing the owner Blu of the mental asylum.

The plot. There is no way that you can comprehend the movie without the plot even if it has an outline. It is so illogical in many ways like how did one of the girls plan to find these items in fantasies. And how does Babydoll enter into a fantasy. All I get was Browning closing her eyes and imagine a WWII scenery and at the end the audience gave a standing ovation when she is doing nothing. When Snyder wrote the screenplay (this is his first orignal film), he hadn't realize how many movies he rips off. The mental institution is from Shutter Island, the fantasies came from Inception and the opening sequence turns Chicago into tastless cold soup

As soon as the movie reaches it's last half hour, where Blu's about to rape Babydoll, it just feels so blantant and offensive.

This is a curse for Snyder as there is a dash of doubt upon him as he directs the upcoming Superman movie with Christopher Nolan as the producer. Sucker Punch is a failure and not even a single sample of music could help.

Watchmen (revised)

B (7.2)


Watchmen can never be a perfect movie. As many fans of the acclaimed graphic novel had been anticipating upon its initial release, this is what they got and it was polarising to watch.

The one main argument for and against is director Zach Snyder, who directed 300 and this time Sucker Punch. The pros for Snyder is that he's visually gifted, there's no denying that the cinematography, slow mo timing captures a graphic novella. Unfortunately, the cons are that he's not a director of actors. More specifically, a director of actresses as I'll review, his writing often mismatch with his gift and then the list would keep growing.

This year, 2011 would be huge with supercapers following the releases of Green Latern, X Men: First Class, Captain America and Thor. Watchmen would count along with X Men Origins: Wolverine as the two superhero films released in 2009.

Watchmen was a movie that could never be made following disputes with author Alan Moore (who still holds a grudge against Hollywood following his disapproval of each of his adaptation), budget and crew.

But there it is. 20 years later. Watchmen starts off with an opening sequence that features two vigilante/superhero groups the Watchmen through historic events (the man on the moon, JFK Assassination and the hippie movement). So superheroes exist but are then outlawed by the government. The only member who appeared in both Watchmen was the Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) who's a sadistic, misogynistic, gun toting vigilante. Set in 1985 he's murdered spectacularly and one of the Watchmen Roscharch (Jackie Earl Haley) investigates the mystery and revealing his secret identity but at the same time unravels as the fate of the Comedian, the relationships between Silk Spetre (Malin Akerman) and Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) as well as Dr. Manhattan (voiced by Billy Crudup) and the tensions between Russia and America (still led by Richard Nixon in his thrid term) increase, it brings everyone back to action.

Keeping up with this movie is dificult as it is 150 minutes in length. But I was never bored. After all I was pulled in by the cynical themes and angst of these characters and Snyder's noirish input of this movie. The movie i incredibly similar to The Incredibles as much of the premise, characters and style

Jackie Earl Haley and Jeffery Dean Morgan are excellent as Roscharch and the Comedian who are the most interesting character and more so the important characters of this film. Dr. Manhattan is also interesting with a back story of his origins.

But now I'm onto the actresses and mentioned above, Snyder is not a great director of actresses. The main actress is Malin Akerman. With Akerman as Silk Spetre, it's very difficult to like her and find what to like about her because the only thing that was interesting about her was her relationships between Dr. MAnhattan and the Nite Owl in which the chemistries between each character are greater. However they don't need to have a sex scene. It's uneccessary and just brings the anti up. The other actress I have trouble with is Carla Gugino, the mother of Silk Spetre where she's doing a Nicholas Cage. Doing these ridiculous roles as she plays a 60 year mother (even though she plays her age in a flashback) who just rambles about her life as a superhero.

However there are two scenes that I have difficulties with: the Comedian's funeral and the ending. The Comedian's relationships between much of the Watchmen especially with every flashback of him and Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and I forgot to mention Ozymadias (Matthew Goode). There isn't any detail about them and are way too short to know what are the conflicts between them. The ending though is pretty hard to explain as well.

Watchmen is a dark, noirish superhero flick that is unpredictable even if you read the graphic novel. But let's face it. Watchmen was a long awaited movie put in 1989, was shelved several times and had no hopes to be shown on the big screen. In 20 years time this will give itself a 'cult' film status given how little there is to like about to film and doesn't perform well in its budget. Had it been directed by someone else like David Fincher or Darren Arronofsky, this would've been a perfect dedication to all the superhero movies that were generic. But the laws of life state that everything would never be perfect.