Sucker Punch - Blu-ray Review

4.6 Stars (out of 5)

Synopsis

In this mind-warping action thriller, Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a girl slated for lobotomy in a 1950s-era asylum, leads a group of young female inmates in an attempt to escape both their mental fantasy worlds and the actual institution where they are prisoners. To accomplish her plan, Baby Doll must steal five objects -- but is the man who's trying to stop her real, or a figment of her imagination? Zack Snyder (Watchmen) directs. (Buy Now $22.99 Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

Starring:

Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn

Director:

Zack Snyder

Blu-ray Release Date:

June 28, 2011

Subtitles:

English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese

Rating

Overall rating weighted as follows:
Audio 40%, Video 40%, Special Features 20%, Movie - its just our opinion so take it with a grain of salt

Audio 4.9 Stars (out of 5)

Dolby and DTS Demo Discs used as basis for comparison
●        Subwoofer - 5.0 Stars
●        Dialog - 4.5 Stars
●        Surround Effects - 5.0 Stars
●        Dynamic Range - 5.0 Stars

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1

Sucker Punch socks you in the face with it's DTS-HD presentation. Since this movie has several genres of action in, it runs the gambit on all types of audio awesomeness. Exploding bombs boom like they are happening in your neighborhood. Airplanes roar as they fly from behind you. I rewound the film a few times just to hear bullets whizzing by my head with directional precision. However, from time to time, the action and the soundtrack is so amped up that it makes the dialog a little muffled, but it isn't enough to diminish the overall quality of the audio performance.

Video  4.7 Stars (out of 5)

Spears & Munsil Benchmark Blu-ray Edition used as basis for comparison
●        Color Accuracy  - 4.5 Stars
●        Shadow detail - 4.0 Stars
●        Clarity - 5.0 Stars
●        Skin tones - 5.0 Stars
●        Compression - 5.0 Stars

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC, Resolution: 1080p, Aspect ratio: 2.40:1, Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

The video of this film is very stylized and the color palette changes each action scene. The strong visual style work for this movie and give it extremely unique look and feel. Depending on the scene, the palette can be warm or cold, lack color or be vivid. Overall the movie is very sharp and clear while having a constant film grain. Close-ups on the actors are clear enough to show the finest detail of wrinkles, eyelashes, moles, and even pimples. Blacks and dark colors are almost too dark. Details can still be seen in the shadows, but if you are watching this movie in a well lit room lots of details will be lost.

Bonus Features 4.0 Stars (out of 5)

• Theatrical Feature Film and Extended Cut
• Maximum Movie Mode: Exploring the Fantasy World: An immersive movie exploration with host Zack Snyder – featuring Picture-in-Picture, Director Walk-Ons, and much more (Runtime: Feature Length)
• Animated Shorts: “Sucker Punch” Prequel Stories (Runtime: 11 mins)
  • Feudal Warriors
  • The Trenches
  • Dragon
  • Distant Planet
• “Sucker Punch” Behind the Soundtrack (Runtime: 3 mins)

Movie - 2.5 Stars (out of 5)

Review

Sucker Punch is a strange movie, its all over the place in terms of style, emotion, and plot.  You can at times feel emotionally connected to the characters, but the way the story is told gets in the way of all things that are good in this movie. Most of the movie you are wondering what is real and what isn't. The only thing you know that aren't real are the action scenes. Even though the action scenes are awesome and spectacular, they have no emotional meaning because you know nothing is real and nothing is at stake.

This movie has several issues and intentional plot holes. According to the director, plot holes were left for viewer interpretation. These type of statements anger me. No one will watch this movie and completely understand it. This move is not Inception, and it did not earn the right to leave anything to interpretation. If your movie has and giant mechanical bunny rabbit gunning down Nazi airplanes it can't be taken serious.

I don't think I will ever see a movie that has action scenes with giant samurai, steam powered Nazi's, fire breathing dragons, and futuristic robots. I feel like the director Zach Snyder made the movie he wanted to make ever since he was a child. A crazy movie with lots of video game like levels with pretty girls kicking butt.

Comments

[ty|er.]

I was very conflicted after watching this film. Stylistically and visually it was a joy to watch and after reading this review I now know why. You're 100% on the money, they did a superb job with the audio / video, but left a lot in way of story, plot and acting.

Thanks for putting some of thoughts into words, keep up the good work guys!

[Rodney Williams]

Thanks for the kind words. I felt weird writing such a conflicting review about this film, but I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my thoughts.