Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch
Year: 2011
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm

In My Own Words
Before I go any further, I would just like to clarify a few things about what I write on here. I've lately had a few people become confused with what "In My Own Words" is about. First and foremost, Movie Critical is a movie review site, but what distinguishes Movie Critical from other websites is "In My Own Words". "In My Own Words" is exactly as the name suggests, a place where I can talk about whatever I want that has anything to do with the movie I am about to review. I may want to talk about the actors and what they do outside their acting roles, I may want to talk about the location of the film or I may want to talk about my personal experiences with the film.  It is not the review itself. The "Review" section is where I critically evaluate the film and I focus only on what is featured in the film. So Movie Critical is two things, it is an honest and personal opinion on anything I feel like talking about which has anything to do with the film I am reviewing and it is also a critical film review. I don't think it's the right thing to do to talk about such things as what goes in the cinema or what type of cinema I go to in a movie review, and it isn't right to talk about the actors personality or personal life in a review where you should only by talking about their performance in that movie.

Now that we've got that all cleared up, here is my review for a movie which I was really looking forward to, but.......

Review
"Sucker Punch". The film that is a public relations dream. If you haven't seen the anime styled posters with images of "Sucker Punch's" leading ladies in battle all over your city, you must have been living under a rock for the past month. An action film with entrancing computer generated images crossed with the theme of freedom against oppression with some of the hottest young female stars in Hollywood today. You would love to do the marketing for this movie as there is so much you could do and it opens the action genre up to another target audience of young females. So much marketing potential, so much potential as a film. A film that before it's release date was hailed to be Zack Snyder's "Inception". So what happenned? Both too much and not enough. "Sucker Punch" lacks in the areas that matter and has too much going on at the same time.The concept is great and it could have been a masterpiece, but Snyder has just got too caught up in what he could do rather than what he should do.
"Sucker Punch" opens with a music video like montage  of the recent events in Baby Doll's (Emily Browning) life involving the death of her mother and the accidental shooting of her younger sister which have landed her in Lennox Hall Institute for the Mentally Insane. Baby Doll overhears the head of the institution, Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac) tell her stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) that the High Roller will come in a few days to perform a lobotomy on her. She plans to escape from the institution before the High Roller comes and in doing so, creates an alternate battleground in her mind in a world where dragons, ogres and samuari giants fight with her and her fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) to seek out their freedom.

"Sucker Punch" could have well been a cult classic. The visuals, the action sequences,  the soundtrack and the five " no nonsense" lead females have everything that a cult classic would. The first area that "Sucker Punch" fails in is the script. It contains several bouts of surrealism in which Baby Doll creates parallel universes in her mind. She imagines that the institution is a brothel and her and the other girls are it's star dancers and from here she imagines the battleground inside her head. On paper, the idea isn't so bad, but played out on the screen it just doesn't work. It can be downright confusing at times. Even when you finally get a grasp of what is going on, there is no real feeling of suspense or urgency. The jumping back and forwards between the universes in Baby Doll's mind makes the film seem uneven and too jumpy. There is no smooth flow at all through the film which makes it just feel like a big mess. Of course, the film does have it's impressive graphics and action sequences going for it. The most impressive being that of Baby Doll's first venture into her imaginary battleground where she arrives in a Japanese temple setting in the middle of a snowfall, which is really quite beautiful. The soundtrack of the film is also fitting to every scene.

As for the acting, weren't these girls supposed to be in an institution for the mentally insane? Yes, Baby Doll's mind transforms the institution into a brothel, but shouldn't these girls have more eccentric personalities either way? They just all seem a little too much like your average teenage girls, with the exception of the first scene when Baby Doll first arrives at the instituation and we see the theatre for what it really is. The characters would have definately been more interesting if they had contained some of the characteristics from the girls we had seen in the first seen. Otherwise, they really don't have much character at all. The only two actresses who give performances which are noteworthy are Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone, who play sisters Sweet Pea and Rocket. They don't go the full haul with their characters and take them to the limit so that you can really feel connected to them, but they still have more character than the others. Abbie Cornish could have been a bit stronger in the scenes where she is trying to show her power over Baby Doll, but in two particular scenes (which cannot be given away as they will spoil the film for those who want to see it) she is superb. Jena Malone is also very good in the role as the younger and somewhat positive sister. Emily Browning is just dull in her lead role. She does not change her facial expression throughout the whole film and it is confusing to see how such a weak character in personality could be such an influence to these other girls. Vanessa Hudgens doesn't do too badly in this film when you compare her to her "High School Musical" days. She certainly has grown up and has shown she can do more than sing and dance and can hold her own without Zac Efron on her arm. Yet, her character really doesn't have much to it and we really have no idea who Blondie is. The same can be said for Jamie Chung's character, who is Amber?

We could sit here and talk about what "Sucker Punch" could have been all day, but the fact is that it wasn't. It is flat and messy. Action fans may enjoy it for Baby Doll's war sequences and young teenage boys may enjoy it for seeing the girls in short skirts. One of the year's biggest disappointments, if not the biggest.
4/10

Howl

Howl
Year: 2010
Director: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Cast: James Franco, David Strathairn, Jon Hamm, Jeff Daniels

In My Own Words
I have a great respect for James Franco. I have great respect for anyone who tries to balance completing a university degree with a full time career. Could you imagine trying to complete a university degree while being one of the most popular male actors on the planet at the present time? Franco must have wanted a challenge, but good on him! He started acting while completing his Creative Writing degree at UCLA and he is currently enrolled at NYU's Graduate Film program and Columbia University's Graduate program for Fiction Writing. That's what I love, when an actor appreciates the art form behind what they do and continues their education in what they love.

That is not all I appreciate about James Franco. He loves to take risks. He was critically acclaimed for his role of James Dean in the TV movie of the same name, Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man trilogy, the lead male role in "Tristan + Isolde" and of course, as Aron Ralston in his Oscar nominate role in "127 Hours". The scope of his acting roles is very impressive. I think we need to give him a break in regards to his performance as an Oscar host. He wasn't Billy Crystal, but there are not too many people who could do the job that Franco did in front of the whole world. And there isn't too many people who could host the Academy Awards and be at class the next day. Kudos Franco!

I have to mention one of my favourite Franco roles, as himself in "30 Rock". Yes, I am a big fan of "30 Rock" in general so that may contribute to the fact that I find the idea of Franco having to find a fake girlfriend in order to cover up the fact that he is in love with a Japanese body pillow extremely hilarious.

These are my own words and here is my review.

Review
"Howl" proves that it is possible to be captivating and weak at the same time. It is not boring and not slow, but it is also not suspenseful and not powerful either. It is extremely unusual for a film to be all of these things at once, but then "Howl" isn't an ordinary film. The elements that go into making "Howl" the film that it is show complete originality and creativity. "Howl" is almost two stories in one, with the centre of the film being Allen Ginsberg's poem, "Howl". From one angle, the film is about Allen Ginsberg (James Franco) and his life, specifically focusing on his life and loves in the time in which "Howl" was written. While Ginsberg talks about his life from his New York apartment, on the other side of the country in a San Francisco courtroom "Howl" is on trial. The question is, is "Howl" a work of art, or just a work of obscenity?

The people who will find "Howl" the most interesting are literary fans and fans of James Franco. People who don't fit into these categories will most probably find this film bizarre and lack lustre. It is the biopic aspect of this film which makes the film bearable. "Howl" would have perhaps been more of a success if the whole film had in fact been the story of Allen Ginsberg and the courtroom drama been left out. You can see what directors, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman are trying to do by trying to capture what "Howl" meant to the poet and the readers and the cause and effect, but they would have been better to have left it at the poet. The courtroom scenes have no suspense, no drama, no depth, the acting is poor and the best thing that comes out of these scenes is that you find out what makes a piece of writing credible.

However, the scenes with Ginsberg are quite enthralling and the animation segments are almost hypnotising. It is a surprise to those who had not heard much about the film beforehand to find so much simple yet brilliantly creative animation involved in the film's editing and cinematography.  Franco's performance of Ginsberg is fantastic. He becomes Ginsberg in this role and masters his voice and tone. He can also be quite heart breaking in some flashback scenes, such as when he realises that his lover has left him. Franco makes Ginsberg's character lovable and brings emotion to the film. In short, he saves the film.

"Howl" is quite simple, but it is not hard to determine that it wasn't supposed to be. It is obvious that it was supposed to work as a film in two parts, yet one part of the film fails to really do anything at all. Epstein and Friedman should thank those at The Monk Studios for their amazing animation and James Franco for his accurate performance for the successes in this film, as without them "Howl" would be completely unfulfilling.
6/10

The Town

Year: 2010
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Chris Cooper, John Hamm

In My Own Words
I am proud of Ben Affleck. It's like he was taken seriously when he and pal Matt Damon won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Good Will Hunting" back in 1997, then had a period for awhile where critics could not see him in a serious light with films like "Daredevil" and "Surviving Christmas", but his last few major projects have shown just how far Affleck has come. He has given some of the best performances of his career in films such as "Hollywoodland" (which is actually one of my personal favourite films) and "State Of Play", and had an extremely successful full length directorial debut in the 2007 film, "Gone Baby Gone". In "The Town", he shows his true talent as a director and an actor. It is great to look at someone like Ben Affleck and see true potential being reached. Being an Affleck fan for a long time, I left the cinema bursting with pride for him. Nothing like a film to prove what you knew all along!

I have often spoken about how films can be a great tourism tool, but this film actually got me thinking about how they can sometimes not be such great tourism tools. Boston is a beautiful city, and I know I'm not the only one who thinks this. "The Town" does actually show some of the beauty of Boston, but it shows the bad side of the city as well. It represents Boston in a dangerous light showing the crime and poverty. There is nothing wrong with what Affleck has done here, as he is madly in love with Boston and I am sure he would love people to visit it, but there are people who haven't been to Boston and know nothing of it besides what they see in the film. These people probably wouldn't want to visit Boston after seeing this film. Shame if they are going to base their opinion of all of Boston on a film that focuses only on Charlestown, which is only one part of Boston.

These are my own words and here is my review.

Review"The Town" is one of those truly unpredictable films. There is nothing worse than sitting through a movie with a clear idea of where it is heading and how it will end. With its unpredictability, fine acting and brilliant cinematography, Ben Affleck proves himself as a successful director, if there was any doubt before. Doug MacRay (Affleck) is living in a world plagued with crime and theft which he is trying to escape, but keeps finding himself drawn back into the lifestyle of Charlestown that he and is friends have grown up in. When they rob a Boston bank and take hostage the bank's manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), Doug feels that he should follow Claire to make sure she doesn't do or say anything that will get them caught out. However, the two start falling for each other, which means that Doug must do all he can to keep who he really is hidden. Being from Charlestown, escaping who the world he has grown up in impacts every aspect of his past, present and more than likely his future.

"The Town" is extremely well done. The story is well written and is perfectly adapted for the screen. It is extremely clever and interesting from the beginning to the end. Although it can be slow in parts, every scene is meaningful and is there for a reason. The cinematography is definately a stand out. It is extremely impressive and often beautiful, as well as being completely appropriate for each instance. "The Town" is very well pieced together with the range of camera shots, sound and locations that help explore the emotion and reality of the film.

Perhaps one of the strongest points of "The Town" is its character development and it's cast. By the middle of the film, it is as though the audience knows each of the main characters personally and is able to empathize which each one of them. Affleck gives a stellar performance as Doug. The audience feels each of his emotions that he passes through and see's that he is desperate to escape the way of life in Charlestown. At times he does come across as perhaps too nice of a guy that you have to wonder how such a nice guy can even contemplate being involved in the type of activities he is.It is as though he doesn't have a reason to commit theft, he just does it for the sake of it. However, this is the way Affleck shows how Charlestown can make people do things that they wouldn't be exposed to anywhere else. Jeremy Renner is perfect as Doug's partner in crime and long time friend, Jem. He has the right amount of aggressiveness and intensity to make the audience believe that a person like this could really do the unspeakable. Rebecca Hall also gives a great performance and perhaps the best performance of her career to date. She is extremely likable and can light up the room with her smile, yet when she is upset or angry, it ignites fear. Blake Lively does well as Doug's ex love interest, Krista, although she does not come across as quite as trashy as the film makes her out to be.

"The Town" is complete success and it brings out the best in everyone involved. The acting is superb, story thrilling and direction a tribute to Affleck. He has really shown what he is capable of with both his direction and acting in this film. Well done.
8.5/10