Snyder delivers a Sucker Punch to your pants
Saturday, July 17, 2010
That Snyder, he sure is one stylish motherfucker. This image hit the net a few days ago via an Emily Browning fansite and is the first look at the bad-ass babes of Zack Snyder’s new film Sucker Punch. It’s scanned from a spread in Entertainment Weekly where they give an overview of the films appearing at Comic Con this week (insert jealous grumble here). Thoughts? If I wasn’t a straight woman, I would have a boner by now because frankly, it looks fetish-aboulous. It’s a shame Browning has had to revert from brown to blonde locks, but I’m willing to overlook that cliché in light of the general wickedness this film promises. So, in a similar vein to my overall wraps on Inception and Tomorrow, When The War Began, here is what we know about Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch so far:
The Plot
Sucker Punch is a reimagining of Alice In Wonderland in the 1950s when a young girl, Baby Doll, is institutionalised by her wicked stepfather who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. She escapes to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, and in that universe she starts to plan her escape from the facility with her newfound inmate friends. Needing to steal five objects to achieve freedom, Snyder famously described the film to First Showing as “Alice In Wonderland with machine guns”. Apparently dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels also feature. Snyder came up with the story and wrote the script with Steve Shibuya, a former special-effects and tech whiz. It’s Snyder’s first original film without any source material from comics or previous films.
The Business End
Snyder, whose previous credits include the Dawn Of The Dead remake, 300, Watchmen and the up and coming animated owl flick Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole, is producing the film with his regular collaborator and wife, Deborah. Snyder has been an active filmmaker since 2004 and in that short time he has established himself as one of the few who can consistently deliver style and substance. He’s a visionary who pumps out films more often than the Octomum pumps out babies. It’s also good news that despite Warner Brothers announcing the film would be converted to 3D post-production, the Snyder husband and wife team have fought, and won, to keep their baby in 2D (the way it was filmed and intended). There will be no Clash Of The Titans-muddle here folks. Music is set to play an integral part in the film and mark the transition from reality to alternative-reality. The cast trained in 3 months to be able to perform the stunt and fight scenes before production kicked off in Vancouver from September, 2009 to January, 2010. Sucker Punch has a budget of $85 million.
The Cast
Emily Browning: Baby Doll
One of my favourite Australian actresses, 21-year-old Browning stepped up to the role after Amanda Seyfried dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Thank heavens for that, because as far as I’m concerned Seyfried has ruined herself with all the atrocious rom-com’s she has starred in of late. After a bunch of appearances in Australian TV productions and films such as Ned Kelly, Browning broke into the Hollywood market with her captivating performance in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Followed by her role in supernatural thriller The Uninvited, Browning will be one to watch after Sucker Punch and her role as Lucy, a university student who becomes a prostitute in Julia Leigh’s erotic version of Sleeping Beauty due for release next year.
Jena Malone: Rocket
Replacing Evan Rachel-Wood, who also dropped out over scheduling conflicts, is former child star Jena Malone. Having amassed an accomplished body of work, Malone is just another feather in the bow of accomplished young actresses at the fore of Sucker Punch.
Abbie Cornish: Sweetpea
What can you say about Cornish? Except that she is ridiculously awesome and my favourite Australian actress behind Cate Blanchett! Since her breakout performances in Australian flicks Somersault and Candy, with Heath Ledger, Cornish has gone from strength to strength in mainstream Hollywood blowing me away with turns in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Stop-Loss and, her Oscar-deserving role in Bright Star. Mainly a dramatic actress, I’m looking forward to seeing Cornish in an action-flick where her attitude and beauty are just as important as acting chops. She has worked with Snyder previously, voicing one of the central characters in Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole.
Vannessa Hudgens: Blondie
Okay, so I’m not her biggest fan, but this is clearly Hudgens effort to make the transition from slutty Disney teen-starlet, to slutty Hollywood actress. But hey, if she shows some teeth in an action film I might be willing to overlook her previous efforts (hello there High School Musical and Bandslam). The jury is still out on her Twilighty-looking Beastly.
Jamie Chung: Amber
Chung has proved herself to be a sufficiently meaty action babe after Dragonball: Evolution, Sorority Row and her decency in Grown Ups. Toting a lollipop and fishnets in this though, she’s sure to bring that hot-Asian chick flavour a la Lucy Liu amongst a largely Caucasian cast in Charlie’s Angels.
Carla Gugino: Mrs Shulz
The lass with arguably the best natural rack in the industry (remember her topless scene as Lucille in Sin City?), Gugino plays a nurse in the asylum. Like Cornish, she has worked with Snyder previously, but as the original Silk Spectre in Watchmen.
Others 
Along for the ride are Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac, Jan Hamm and Black Dynamite himself Michael Jai White (above)! Woo!
Sucker Punch is tagged with a March 2011 release date. Sigh.
Although it is adapted from a cult series from DC Comics, The Losers is not your run of the mill comic-book movie. There are no capes here, no kid-friendly content and you can hardly see an action figure being made out of the films heavily tattooed, machine gun-totting heroine. Thankfully, this makes it all the more appealing.
There are some beautifully stylish action sequences in the film that point to its comic book origins and the accompanying soundtrack features the best use of a Journey song since Glee. The performances too are all excellent, with Saldana ditching the blue CGI in favour of some tatts and a facial piercing (above) and JDM proving his charismatic turn as an action-lead in Watchmen wasn't a one off. Surprisingly though, it's Chris Evans (aka the human torch from the Fantastic Four series) who really stands out. He steals the show as the Losers quick-witted and somewhat daggy tech expert, with his delivery of some of the best lines in the film receiving applause from the audience in the screening I attended. Pooch, the team’s “Black MacGuyver” or “Blagyver” is also particularly entertaining. Oh, and did I mention the sex on a stick that is Cougar (below)? Move over my Mark Wahlberg obsession, because now I have a fictional character to fall in love (why should the Twihards have all the fun
But where the film falls down is, despite moments of unpredictability, the generic plotting and villain, who is like a left over Bond bad guy. Sure, he has some okay moments (particularly his delivery of “It's like giving a handgun to a six-year-old, Wade - you don't know how it's gonna end, but you're pretty sure it's gonna make the papers”) but essentially he is your typical `evil' bent on destroying the world and starting a war, despite a lack of clear motivation or vendetta. The plot turns you can see coming a mile off and the final action scenes verge on boring, a flaw that could have been cured if they let the actors spend less time in slo-mo with machine guns and more time in combat or scurrying along rough tops. If not for films humour and style, The Losers is worth seeing just so you can get to know the well-acted, multi-dimensional characters and witness the family dynamic created between them. This will lead action fans to overlook its many flaws and the open-ended conclusion leaves room for what will hopefully be a superior sequel.
The second takes a more pop-art, Reservoir Dogs approach, but is just as effective.
And finally, I always dig a cast breakdown and this series of posters does that, while capturing the personalities of the characters in suitably action-packed poses.
The Losers opens Thursday.
Watched Watchmen yesterday (pun intended). Consensus? One of the most faithful novel to movie adaptions I've seen. The characters are spot on and the visuals are simply delicious. I could eat this film up! It's great to look at and Zack 
Above: A quick visually summary of the sleek, 
The count down begins. It’s hard to believe Watchmen is only 16 days away from coming to a cinema near you! Man, it feels like forever since news of the nifty project drew legions of internet nerds to it faster than Perez Hilton to cock. Those of you born last week might not know Watchmen is the long-awaited and highly anticipated adaptation of Alan Moore’s award-winning graphic novel (largely considered as the most acclaimed graphic novel of all time). Personally, after reading Watchmen I thought it would be too complex to be made in to a film. Then in rode Zack Synder guns blazing and dedication flaring, fresh off the his success with his Dawn Of The Dead remake and 300 adaptation. Apparently Synder is a massive fan of the graphic novel and was obsessed with trying to match up every scene in the film to panels in the comic book, which sounds like a good thing to me. Anyway, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a disturbing conspiracy with links to their past and catastrophic consequences for the future. The trailers have gone viral on the net and it’s clear that Synder has brought his signature stylised approach to project. Watch the trailer 
