FILM REVIEW: SUCKER PUNCH

Warner Bros. Pictures

Now Showing

One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, and according to Zack Snyder, one man's sexual fantasy is another's feminist warrior. Or at least that's what the director (and his leading ladies, sadly) has been trying to convince us of in promoting his latest feature, Sucker Punch; suggesting that his 'girls with guns and swords' action flick is about female empowerment.

Whatever! Sucker Punch is as empowering for women as is Ralph Magazine. Snyder's quintet of lovelies may not pose in bikinis but what little they do wear is hardly a practical wardrobe choice given that they're doing battle - in World War I Europe and other hostile terrains - where bare skin is not the ideal camouflage.

Those battles occur in the mindscape of our heroines led by Baby Doll (Emily Browning), newly arrived at the asylum for women, Lennox House (no relation), and desperate to escape the evil warden (Oscar Isaac). Baby Doll is especially keen to fly the cuckoo's nest as she's scheduled for a lobotomy in five days' time, which is ironic given that Browning's bleach blonde, piggy-tailed, short skirt-wearing character is already lifeless. For Baby Doll is a cypher; a blank slate upon which men's (and teen boys') sexual fantasies can be projected.

As Baby Doll's accomplices, Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Jena Malone and Jamie Chung don't fare much better. When they're not battling dragons and German robots in the dreamscape (somehow accessed when Baby Doll performs trance-inducing gyrations, which for better or worse we never witness) they're learning sexy dance routines under the tutelage of Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino rolling her r's East European style).

You see, the asylum is actually a Moulin Rouge-like whorehouse, or at least it is in one of the three realms in which I think the storyline of Sucker Punch takes place. I suppose that's what Abbie Cornish, who addressed the preview screening I attended, meant when she said the film was “layered”? But Inception it's not.

Ironically, Inception director Christopher Nolan has given his blessing for Snyder to helm the Superman re-boot, planned for release in late 2012. Sucker Punch should have taken the wind out of any excitement that earlier announcement may have generated – Lois Lane packing heat and sporting a two-piece? – so, too, Nolan (who helped pen the screenplay for the new Superman) handing full artistic control over to Snyder.

Working from his fist original idea after the mixed results of Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300 (2006) and Watchmen (2009) – all adaptations – Snyder has, with Sucker Punch, proven himself incapable of restraint. Like a boy discovering his father's copy of Playboy, he's more concerned with the images than the articles – the substance, if you will.

Fellow man-childs, teen boys and gamers (for Sucker Punch plays more like a computer game than a film) will be similarly titillated; feminists, discerning film goers and the non-lobotomized are advised to avert their gaze.

SCHOOL HOLIDAY FILMS

RIO (20^th Century Fox Films) Now Showing

Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) is a rare blue macaw, raised in Minnesota and more human than bird; he can't even fly. But when he's taken to his native Rio to aid in a breeding program with Jewel (incongruously voiced by Anne Hathaway; no Latina actresses available?), a captive macaw in the midst of planning her escape, a series of misadventures ensues involving bird smugglers, an evil cockatoo (a scene-stealing Jemaine Clement), a salivating bulldog and some evil monkeys.

Much like Brazil's annual festival Carnivale, which provides the backdrop to the climax of Rio, the latest film by the creative team behind Ice Age is all colour, sound and movement. That's not to say it isn't fun or entertaining – it is – but in the continually impressive world of animated features, Rio is more diversionary than enthralling.

Having said that, it's probably the best family film choice these Easter school holidays, capable of entertaining kids and adults alike with its breezy nature, humour and heart, albeit not in the league of Pixar (but then, who is?).

HOP (Universal Pictures) Now Showing

The Easter Bunny is a hereditary title, inherited not earned, and the Easter Bunny himself oversees a Wonka-like operation manned by fluffy yellow chicks (cheep labour!) beneath Easter Island (of course). That's what we learn early on in Hop, the latest animation-live action mix from Tim Hill, the director of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

We also learn that Russell Brand, alleged comedian and ladies' man (what's up with that?), is no less tolerable in animated form. He voices E.B., the son of the Easter Bunny who'd rather play drums than take on the family business and so leaves Easter Island for Hollywood, ingratiating himself into the life of Frank O'Hare (James Marsden), a Gen Y slacker who's in need of some direction. Frank can't shake the rabbit until E.B.'s scored his big break in the music world. Cue lazy Hassellhoff cameo.

Hop is squarely aimed at the 5 and under age group, an audience not yet able to discern between humour and loud noise, which is what I found Hop to be. Most of the jokes fall flat and Brand, no doubt cast to appeal to the (unfortunate) parents accompanying their kids, makes E.B. the most boorish bunny since Bugs. Hank Azaria as Carlos, the Easter Bunny's coup-planning 2IC, gets the best laughs while Marsden, a good sport here, deserves better. As do your kids: see something – anything – else these holidays.

MARS NEEDS MUMS (Walt Disney Studios Films) Opens April 14

When Milo's mum (Joan Cusack) is abducted by aliens – her parenting skills deemed ideal for implanting into the Martians' nanny-bots who raise their female children; the males are literally thrown on the rubbish dump – Milo (Seth Green), stowing away on the abductors' spaceship, makes it his mission to get his mother back.

He's aided in his quest by Gribble (Dan Fogler), a man who was once in Milo's position but with not so fortunate an outcome, and Ki (Elisabeth Harnois), a native of Mars whose knowledge of Earth has been gleamed from a 1960s TV show.

Mars Needs Mums is the latest motion-capture film by director Robert Zemeckis (The Polar Express, Beowulf) although this time he's in the producer's chair (Simon Wells directs). The technique, which sees live performances by actors captured by motion sensors and then layered with animation, achieves its most life-like imagery here with the humans (especially Fogler's Gribble) actually looking like humans and less like lobotmized beings.

The film itself, aimed at a tween and older audience (it gets dark in places), has some garbled messages about the ideal parenting paradigm (as well as posing an interesting scenario of a world where women rule) before ultimately deciding on the one mum-one dad system. This is a Disney film, after all.

FILM REVIEW: HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER

Palace Films

Now Showing

The title may give the impression of a tale of nostalgia – recollections of an idyllic summer when all was perfect and right with the world – but Alexei Popogrebsky's film is more akin to a nightmare, one which could so easily have been avoided.

You see, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Pavel (Grigory Dobrygin) is a university student undertaking work experience at a Russian Arctic meteorological station so he can write his paper, How I Ended This Summer. He's not overly excited by his role – taking down weather readings every few hours – and is often driven to distraction or sleep.

This in turn frustrates his co-worker and superior, in age and experience, Segei (Sergei Puskepalis), a gruff man who wants nothing more than to get their assignment completed incident-free and return to his family on the mainland.

But when Sergei is off fishing, Pavel receives word from the mainland that the elder man's wife and son have been involved in an accident. Pavel is instructed to deliver the message immediately and that a ship may be on its way to collect Sergei, but for whatever reason Pavel decides he can't tell his co-worker what has happened, in the hopes that another radio transmission will come through upon Sergei's return. It doesn't, and the tension continues to build from there, all the while you're screaming (in your head) at Pavel, “just tell him!”.

Popogrebsky means to unsettle us – with the film's sparse landscape (all rock and ice), the jagged soundtrack, (mostly from Pavel's walkman), and the long silences between the two men – and he does. It's easy to see how paranoia could take hold in this situation but not so easy to understand why Pavel, after his initial error in judgement, continues to make mistake upon deadly mistake.

At two hours, the discomfiture of How I Ended This Summer gradually progresses from one of genuine dread to that induced by butt-numbness (greatly aided by the too-small seats of the Place Verona where I watched it). But for the most part it's a gripping psychological thriller.

FILM REVIEW: MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE

Icon Film Distribution

Now Showing

My Afternoons with Margueritte, starring Gerard Depardieu, is a little Gallic charmer. Actually, it lays the charm on a little too thick to begin with, but soon settles down into a warm comic-drama about friendship and opening your mind and heart.

Okay, that sounds a little too twee but it's not that treacly. Depardieu is Germaine, a man who makes his living doing odds-jobs around town and selling the vegetables from his garden. He has a much younger girlfriend, a mother who seems to resent his existence, and so called friends who think him a buffoon; the latter two relationships expanded upon in flashback.

Then one day in the park he meets Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus), a kindly old woman whose love of books and reading encourages Germaine to improve his literacy. But as Germaine's appetite for reading increases, Margueritte's eyesight continues to fade, and pretty soon the student becomes the teacher.

The relationship that develops between Germaine and Margueritte is nicely handled, and Depardieu and the 95-year-old Casadesus have an easy chemistry. Sitting side-by-side on the park bench, they make for a humourous study in contrasts; Casadesus's petite frame opposite Depardieu's gregarious nature and impressive girth.

Adapted from the bestselling French novel by Marie-Sabine Roger (a Gallic Tuesdays with Morrie, perhaps?), writer-director Jean Becker's film (co-written with Jean-Loup Dabadie) is as light and warm as an oven fresh croissant, and just as comforting. And at a mere 82 minutes, it never outstays its welcome.

In fact, the ending seems a little rushed and overly pat. But never mind, it will leave you with a smile. And any film which promotes the importance and joy of books and reading is fine by me.