Sucker Punch (2011)

Sucker Punch looks like somebody stapled a plot to a stack of heavy metal album covers. Zack Snyder throws in giant samurai with miniguns, clockwork soldiers in muddy trenches and robots on a speeding train, and every world gets the same airbrushed shine. Then he cuts away before any of it matters, over and over, for 110 minutes. Every mission follows the same to-do list from Scott Glenn’s Wise Man, who talks entirely in motivational posters. Emily Browning barely speaks as Babydoll, and Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung get costumes instead of personalities. Oscar Isaac, as a slimy orderly, at least seems awake. The slow motion is so constant it deserves its own credit. It made $89.8 million worldwide on a reported $75 to $82 million. A 3.2 because the pictures are loud and the movie has nothing to say with them. $3,929 says you skip the next cutscene in a game and then wander around lost because you missed the one instruction that mattered.

What works: Some of the fantasy imagery is striking, and Oscar Isaac brings real menace to a thinly written part.

What doesn’t: The characters are interchangeable, the missions repeat the same pattern, and the constant slow motion drains the action of tension.

Who it’s for: People who pause action movies to admire the costume design and don’t need a story to go with it.