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Top 12 most disappointing films of the year
A few of these films could feature on my worst of list at the end of the year but at the moment my feeling towards them is one of disappointment. I went to the cinema, sat in anticipation was underwhelmed/turned off/crushed by these films.
The Hangover Part II
Despite laughing at this film I was also completely bored by its insistence to repeat the original beat-for-beat. Despite its success I’m still nore sure comedy sequels can work or bring anything new to the table.
Sucker Punch
Sucker Punch is a bit of a mess isn’t? A gorgeous looking one but a mess all the same. I’m still amazed that they gave Snyder the Man of Steel gig.
Green Lantern
As bad as the reviews said it was? No, but a very, very average comic book adaptation.
Arthur
At the screening I went to people laughed, I must have a miserable sense of humour because I could not wait for this film to end.
Faster
Someone needs to give Dwayne Johnson a good action film to be in and not this boring nonsense.
Battle Los Angeles
Is it possible to suffer a concussion from the sonic bombardment that is Battle Los Angeles? Incredibly loud.
Paul
One of the biggest disappointments because I actually had expectations for it. Nowhere near as funny as it should have been.
The Mechanic
Jason Statham beats people up. Again.
The Green Hornet
Not horrible, just instantly forgettable.
Priest
Front-runner for the worst film I’ve seen this year. Hang your head in shame Paul Bettany
Red Riding Hood
Half an hour in and you should know the identity of the wolf. Indie (ish) soundtrack is also annoying.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Kids deserve better than this, they really do (reminisces about The Flight of the Navigator)
Cinema Review: Sucker Punch
“You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!”
I think it was Zack Snyder’s time.
Every now and then a director is thrown headfirst onto a busy road, evading the traffic (critics) and attempting to cross to the other side. It is a bit similar to the joke of the chicken trying to cross the road except it doesn’t have a punch line, unless that punch line is the director’s career.
Bryan Singer had Superman Returns, Sam Raimi had Spider-Man 3, Peter Jackson had the King Kong (or The Lovely Bones), Spielberg had Crystal Skull and M Night Shyamalan had, well, every film after Unbreakable. A director is lauded critically for a few films and when he/she takes a step wrong they get stung. Suddenly their body of work is up for debate and questions are asked as to whether they were any good in the first place.
I’m not a huge fan of Snyder; I think his best film is his Dawn of Dead remake. On repeat watches 300 bores me; Watchmen, well you can read my opinion on that (warning! It’s long) and Legend of the Guardians is overly simplistic. With Sucker Punch, a film based on his own material, there was the sense that we would see the making of Snyder; could he intelligently and cogently convey his ideas or flounder in his excess?
I think he floundered.
However the film still lingers in my head. Sucker Punch attempts some interesting concepts; its execution however is absolutely up for debate.
Snyder has never been the most intellectual or most astute of directors when it comes to themes and character depth but Sucker Punch really has him straining to make a consistent point and whatever point he had is lost in wave after wave of visual dazzle.
Nevertheless I do not believe that Sucker Punch was or is a bad film, just a misguided one. There have been many vitriolic reactions that show a lack of consideration about what the text in Sucker Punch may mean. It is simply taken as it is presented and that approach may leave any critical thought divorced from the film’s more adroit moments.
Sucker Punch centres on Emily Browning’s Babydoll, sent to a mental institution by her corrupt stepfather after the death of her sister. Once there she seeks to break free and escape her potential fate of being lobotomised. She retreats into her imagination conjuring up different levels of fantasy and repurposing her fellow inmates within them in order to obtain several objects that will lead Babydoll and her fellow inmates to freedom.
There are supposedly two realities. We start off with the world of the mental institution and then switch into a world that is a bordello, a reality that overlaps what the mental institution is which is a place where Blue (Oscar Isaac) allows the girls to be victimised and abused by either the orderlies or paying customers. Whenever Babydoll dances for these ‘customers’ she conjures up a dream world that cast her and her fellow detainees as super-heroic, kick ass fighters. This approach makes it difficult in reading the film’s subtext (I simply have no explanation for some scenes) but that’s not the only area where the film trips up.
Giving a girl a gun and sword does not equal empowerment (just like giving a guy a gun does not always mean he’s compensating), creating strong female characters that are the equal of men (and not through some tawdry sex act) is what makes Ripley one of the best and most interesting female characters. Character is something that Snyder appears to have misplaced in a drawer somewhere as he focuses primarily on the sexuality of Babydoll and the inmates. In the context of the bordello it would make sense, they are dolled up to their eyeballs in order to be highly attractive but the implications for the audience are harder to fathom.
Sucker Punch wants its audience to revel (if that’s the right word) in Babydoll’s sexuality but at the same time suggest that to ogle her (which Snyder seems intent on doing through his camera moves and judicious use of slow-motion) is some sort of a violation in a manner similar to Blue’s oppression. The women are shown through the prism of being highly sexualised creatures and men as dirty, depraved stereotypes who covet them and have power (i.e. fear) over them. I fail to see how presenting these characters in a highly sexual state with very little substance to them and then giving them weapons and proclaiming it as empowerment could work. They’re sex objects for the males in the film and they’re presented as such to the viewer with very little to suggest there’s a character underneath all the, admittedly, visually gorgeous sheen. They’re walking stereotypes and pretty lifeless ones at that.
Despite that the action sequences are some of the best Snyder has done, always coherent even though the use of slow-mo is grating at times, my favourite was the bomb on the train (I’m thinking the bomb is a metaphor for their situation i.e. it’s about to blow up) which despite showing off its less than good CGI showed a director with purpose and invention. It’s a shame he didn’t display that in the narrative.
Sucker Punch neither excited nor disappointed me, it didn’t float my boat nor did it sink it. I am rather ambivalent towards it, its visual grandiloquence never quite engaging me. It is at times a confusing and shambling mess of a film, ambling to make a point but confusing matters with a lack of subtlety. It is crying out for a defter touch but loses whatever it has to say through the noise and distortion of its peculiar narrative. I’m interested in revisiting it on DVD/Blu Ray when it is released in order to really dig in and figure out what Snyder was trying to accomplish.
What they said about…Sucker Punch
Sucker Punch comes out in UK theatres this week and as I haven’t been able to snag any preview tickets from any websites online I probably won’t watch it until the weekend or probably even next week. The picture debuted to $19.1 million bow at the US Box Office but what’s more surprising for the Zack Snyder pic is the strong reaction against the film highlighting its lack of cohesion, any sense of investment, character and generally dissolving into a mash of a teenage boys wet dream. The word seems to be an ambitious, visually striking film that fails as a story. I’d hold off from commenting but I’d say I was not expecting this level of vitriol, even for a Snyder film and I’ve never thought that he was an especially talented filmmaker when it come to story (or restraint).
Here’s a some choice quotes from a few reviews:
Brad Brevet – RopeofSilicon
Sucker Punch is Snyder’s barely legal wet dream. It’s a film with the vision of a teen boy excited by the Victoria’s Secret catalog and confused by his burgeoning sexuality.
Read More:http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/movie-review-sucker-punch-2011
Joshua Starnes – ComingSoon.net
Like pornography, “Sucker Punch” is the type of film you fast forward through the boring story parts to get to the good stuff. If that works for you, more power to you. For anyone who needs the vaguest whiff of substance, “Sucker Punch” is not for you.
I walked out of this movie in a state of depression. Depressed that so much technical bravura could be thrown away. Depressed that someone mistook this empty, nihilistic sketch for a substantive and meaningful project. Depressed that I had been bamboozled into paying $10 to be subjected to it. At least, however, I understood the meaning of the title. I had been sucker punched.
After Watchmen, which I’m almost certain was ‘quite good’, there were hopes that he’d matured into a director capable of more than fanboy pandering and macho posturing. Instead, it appears he’s regressed into a twelve year old boy discovering masturbation for the first time. And this twelve year old boy has $82 million and Emily Browning in a schoolgirl costume.
Little more than a sizzle-reel for Zack Snyder’s wettest dreams, what it lacks in consistency it makes up for in chutzpah. Just imagine if it had a decent story…Read more: Sucker Punch review | TotalFilm.com
The movie is like an arrested adolescent’s Google search run amok.
But because they’re figments of a girl’s imagination, nothing is at stake, resulting in minimal suspense or rooting interest.
Ambitious and visually impressive as a pop-video mash-up, but, lacking a strong emotional core, it doesn’t quite cohere as a fully satisfying movie.
