Movie Review: Mr Perfect

Tollywood is in no mood to experiment these days, choosing to stick to safe, breezy love stories. And Dasarath's "Mr Perfect" is no different. Already adept at handling such subjects, his last film, "Santosham," being testimony, Dasarath has walked down the same old path in "Mr Perfect" too.

The story goes something like this. Vicky (Prabhas), an expert in gaming software, lives in Australia, never compromises in life. He hates "adjustments" and thinks that one shouldn't sacrifice one's comforts for others. He wants everything in his life to be perfect, even his life partner. His father asks him to get married to his childhood buddy, Priya (Kajal Agarwal), when he comes to India for his sister's marriage. He decides to spend time with Priya for 10 days before he makes his decision.

The two start off on the wrong foot, but inevitably, Priya falls in love with Vicky. When their ecstatic parents are about to announce their engagement, Vicky suddenly declares that he is not going to marry Priya as she decided to sacrifice all her personal preferences for him. He returns to Australia, only to meet Maggie (Taapsee), who he thinks is perfect for him. Meanwhile, a determined Priya follows him back to Australia, giving the story a not-so-new angle.

What is applause-worthy in the movie is Kajal Agarwal's performance. She looks great, expresses well and fits into the role perfectly. Prabhas manages to look nice, but really needs to work on his dialogue delivery. Their on-screen chemistry however, is commendable.

Prakash Raj, Murali Mohan and K Viswanath play the same predictable characters they are famous for. Taapsee is good in her short appearance. For once, her voice isn't dubbed and it isn't too bad as it suited her NRI character. Brahmanandam is wasted in comic capers that don't work. The story is simple and clean, but for all its predictability, it's definitely not a paisa vasool film.

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Movie Review: Super

I really was not planning to see this. When I first saw the trailer to "Super," it looked to me like it was going to this geek reference comedy with Rainn Wilson doing his thing from The Office, which had become extremely tired for me (I quit watching The Office a couple of seasons ago). Even knowing that this was written and directed by James Gunn, who has previously made "Slither" which I had a good time with, wasn't enough.

What made me want to see it was the recent review that Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and Christy Lemire gave it on Ebert Presents At The Movies. Their review convinced me that there was more to "Super" than what its trailer gave off, and it certainly intrigued me enough to want to seek this out when it came to St. Louis. Awhile back, I'd posted on a messageboard about one of the original iterations of At The Movies going away, and it was followed by someone talking about the idea that the concept for this show was going the way of the dinosaur thanks to the Internet and the barrage of reviews that you can get through that. I thought that was just kind of sad. Yeah, sure, you can get reviews all over the Internet for everything, but they're faceless, they have no sound or inflection and unless it's someone you trust completely, they're all over the map.

Of course, there's a lot of good reviewers out there on the Internet, who you know you can completely trust just due to their consistency. But with that said, nothing will ever really replace for me the idea of an actual television show devoted to movie reviews. I can't begin to tell you how many movies I was opened up to by actually seeing and hearing intelligent conversation thanks to the various iterations of At The Movies. Sorry for the long digression, but I can't push Ebert Presents At The Movies enough. You may not agree with every review in the end, but the one thing that it does have is a consistency of voice and intent. To me anyway, that's invaluable in deciding what to see.

But back to "Super." This opened here in the St. Louis area this past weekend at one of my favorite theatres in town, the Tivoli. When I heard it was coming, this got fast-tracked for me right away, thanks to the above. I saw this last night, and think it's one of the best movies that I've seen so far this year.

Frank D'Arbo is seemingly just your average ordinary guy who at the start of the film tells you about the only two perfect moments in his life -- marrying his wife Sarah and pointing out to a policeman where a criminal went. Frank's devoted to Sarah, but Sarah's got a past history of substance abuse. That history begins to catch up to her when she gets involved with a slick guy named Jacques. In a matter of days, Jacques leads Sarah back to her old ways, and soon she out-and-out leaves Frank, leaving him hopelessly distraught. Frank's at the end of his rope and doesn't know what to do until a divine vision comes to him. This vision inspires Frank to become a costumed crimefighter named The Crimson Bolt, and from there the inevitable hijinks ensue.

As I said above, writer/director James Gunn is best known for 2006's "Slither." But before that, he had a long association with Troma Studios, known for their low-budget, extremely over-the-top exploitation films. A lot of "Super" is a flat-out salute to those movies, but there's a lot more to this as well. It's really difficult to pin any sort of singular label on this movie. On its surface, it looks like it's going to be a broad comedy, when it's actually an extremely black comedy. With Rainn Wilson's presence, I had the feeling that it was going to be one note, but Wilson goes to some places emotionally that are extremely dark, so this could also carry the label of being a psychological investigation. And then there's the whole super-hero element that initially gets compared to "Kick-Ass," but combined with other factors puts this more on the same plane with what I think "Sucker Punch" was trying to achieve. The difference being that "Super" actually does achieve it. The end result, to me anyway, actually has more in common with "Taxi Driver" than anything else.

Oh, there's certainly some broad comedy, and it's not ineffective. It's also not what this will be known for, as it gets overshadowed by the very dark overall tone and the extreme violence within. The violence is quite graphic and feels "real" and that is certainly something to keep in mind if you decide to see this. That factor alone is something that could be a huge turn-off for someone coming in and expecting this to be like what I'd originally thought it was going to be.

Gunn's Troma roots are certainly on display in the shooting style. The look of the film feels like there was a lot of guerilla filmmaking going on while shooting this, and it definitely works. It's authentic feel makes the evident darkness even more pronounced. Other highlights include a terrific animated opening sequence, a very Troma-esque way in which Frank gets his divine vision, and a great score from composer Tyler Bates. I'd mentioned "Sucker Punch" above. "Sucker Punch" does something with its ending that tries to flip the whole thing, which just doesn't work primarily due to simply not being set-up that well. "Super" does the same sort of thing, but when it happens it's not forced and it does still come back to Frank, making for quite the poignant ending.

The big revelation for me here though was Rainn Wilson. This isn't Dwight Shruite by any means. Frank is off-balanced, to be sure, but he's also highly relatable. He's had his life turned upside-down, with one of his perfect moments tarnished. He externalizes a lot of pain that I know I can certainly relate to. Those scenes might at first seem a touch over-the-top, but I thought they were very honest and certainly made him to be a much more sympathetic character than what I had expected.

Liv Tyler plays Sarah, and Kevin Bacon plays Jacques. At first, the big question looms: How does someone who looks like Liv Tyler get involved with a guy like Frank? Another movie might be very superficial with something like this, but James Gunn actually goes there and tells you how. Tyler shines in these scenes, and again, it feels honest. Kevin Bacon is very slick, and right off the bat you know that Jacques is going to be this sort of scum that everyone has come across in their lives in their own way.

Ellen Page plays Libby, a comic book store employee who helps Frank get on his track and later becomes his "kid" sidekick, Boltie. I tend to think that Ellen Page is one of the best young actresses out there today and seeing her in "Super" further supports that. As unbalanced as Frank is, there's even darker stuff at work for Libby -- she's just not as cognizant of it as Frank is. Page is quite good at subverting that, making this part something that has more in common with the first movie I saw her in, "Hard Candy."

The casting also includes some other nice touches. Veteran actors Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion (all also in "Slither") have key roles here, and play perfectly into Gunn's big picture. Other nice acting touches include William Katt (from TV's The Greatest American Hero as an on-screen police officer and Rob Zombie as the voice of God. Their appearances are really brief, but very nice winks to the intended audience.

"Super" is a terrific movie and just this extremely huge surprise. It's not for everyone. For instance, if you're a parent who's seen the trailer and thinks that this will be something your children will enjoy, you just might want to hold off. Its dark tone and extreme violence could also be very off-putting to some, so I can't give this a blanket recommendation. But if you think you can get into the combination of blacker-than black comedy, psychological unbalance and a very big heart, then you might find something very special with "Super." I know I did.

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Thor - movie review

Sandwiched in the multiplex between his Avengers comrades Iron Man (2) and Captain America, the latest Marvel superhero to take to the big-screen is Thor. Unlike some of his predecessors, in the hands of director Kenneth Branagh and star Chris Hemsworth, Stan Lee's most godly son is a welcome addition to the cinematic superhero pantheon.

Having brought war to the peaceful realm of Asgard, the cocky Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is banished to Midgard (otherwise known as Earth) by his furious father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), despite the best calming efforts of his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston). In banishing his son, Odin casts a spell upon Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, so that it will only impart its powers on a worthy bearer. In other words, Thor has to go and think long and hard about what he's done.

There's plenty of time to do that on Earth, where he meets - i.e. is nearly run over by - Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a scientist who has been investigating electrical storms in New Mexico. Soon enough the S.H.I.E.L.D suits (led by Clark Gregg as the perfectly smarmy Agent Coulson from both Iron Man installments) are on his case, too.

As if that wasn't enough for an off-duty Norse god to deal with, Loki assumes the throne in Asgard and creates havoc in both realms. He invites the Frost Giants, hungry for vengeance, across the Bifröst into Asgard, sends The Destroyer (seemingly the love child of a radiant heater and Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still) to Earth, and Thor soon has his work cut out for him.

It's a tidy story arc, as these origin/reboot films tend to be, but Thor never feels underfed, thanks to an impressive cast, a snappy script and thoughtful direction from Kenneth Branagh. When he was announced as director (after Matthew Vaughan dropped out), Shakespeare expert Branagh must have felt like an odd fit in many comic fans' eyes, but in fact he brings a reverence for the source material that is compelling.

After all, what are comic books if not epic mythic narratives? Superhero stories have more in common with the work of The Globe's finest than many would like to admit: tragedy, comedy, pathos. And Thor, blessed additionally with its grounding in the great Norse myths, perhaps has even more in common.

Hemsworth is wonderful as the hero, effortlessly traversing Thor's journey from magical jock douche to someone more worthy of Mjölnir's powers.

Much is made, by Odin and others, of Thor's being little more than a hot-headed "boy", and Hemsworth finds the perfect mix of youthful arrogance and childlike innocence.

Without infantilising him (which, let's face it, would be a fairly stupid actorly choice given his physical appearance), Hemsworth gives Thor a vulnerability that is appealing. When Loki appears at the S.H.I.E.L.D. base to inform his brother of the terms of his banishment, Thor's eyes well with tears and he asks only, "Can I come home?" It's simple and moving.

Hiddleston is terrific as Loki, a slimy, super-powered version of Shakespeare's Edmund. Like that (literal) bastard, Hiddleston's Loki is a curiously sympathetic antagonist, never falling into caricatured evil.

As Jane Foster (a nurse in the comics, updated here to an astrophysicist), Portman is sparky and appealing; her scenes with Stellan Skarsgård (as her colleague, Erik) and Kat Dennings (as the deadpanning intern, Darcy) have a breezy, natural rhythm.

The cast is so uniformly strong that it would take too much space to praise them all individually, but in particular, The Wire's Idris Elba is imposing as gatekeeper Heimdall, Anthony Hopkins underplays (uncharacteristically) as the alternately mournful and hot-blooded Odin, and there's a nifty pre-Avengers cameo for Jeremy Renner as an unnamed Clint Barton/Hawkeye.

Too often there seems to be a desire among filmmakers to look askance at comic book lore, as though they need to cram in as many winking gags as possible to say to the bro dudes in the audience, "Hey, don't worry dudes, we made this for you, not those Poindexters down the comic shop."

To his credit, Branagh avoids this, though not at the expense of fun; indeed, Thor is frequently hilarious, but the humour comes from a genuine affection for the occasionally silly tropes of the comic books, not misguided "irony".

(A sequence in which a parade of local rednecks use Thor's buried hammer as a strength-tester to the tune of Billy Swan's I Can Help is particularly fun.) One of the few weaknesses of the film is the skipping back and forth between Earth and Asgard. Just as the action in either realm gets on a roll, it's back to the other.

At times, the Asgard sequences teeter on the brink of unwatchable, not because they are bad, but because there is so much to see that your eyes begin to short-circuit. The Bifröst by itself? Fine! A shimmering ocean? Cool! Awesome castles? Why not! Throw them all together in 3D and the legendary realm is such a smorgasbord of visual riches it almost cancels itself out. It's a testament to Branagh and his creative team, however, that within that "almost" lie some of the most impressively realised vistas in recent memory.

(The 3D cinematography is used unobtrusively and serves to be more immersive than flashy.)

In many ways, and despite its awe-inspiring visuals, Thor feels like a film out of its time; it almost has more in common in with the rollicking adventures of the 1930s and '40s than the hip superhero reboots of the 21st century.

That mood is reflected in a variety of ways. The frost giants, led by Colm Feore as Laufey, are predominantly played (at least in close-up) by actual actors in makeup, which is a relief - there's something so much more satisfying about a villain who isn't just a computer construct.

Under Branagh's guiding hand, Thor and his band of friends - Sif and the Warriors Three - carry on like Errol Flynn-era heroes, clapping each other on the shoulder in greeting and over-emoting just enough to set them apart from us mere Earthlings. It's charming.

More broadly, though, Thor has a real emotional depth - it's unusually soulful for a superhero film. Yes, Christopher Nolan's Batman efforts had a similar sensitivity, though it came from a darker and, thus, ultimately less interesting place; Thor is more bittersweet. There's a hopefulness to the film, particularly its ending, that verges on elegiac.

The inevitable Avengers film (expected in 2012) has given the most recent individual origin films an episodic quality, but where Iron Man 2 suffered for that - and one suspects the upcoming Captain America will also - Thor avoids feeling like a placeholder. Instead of leaving the cinema irritated, unwilling to wait for his next adventure, you feel buoyed. A winning blend of thrill and feeling, respect and irreverence, Thor lifts Marvel's movie stocks considerably.

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Thank You Movie Review

The basic plot is pretty simple. Sticking to his familiar territory this time, Bazmee’s Thank You is the story of three philandering husbands Bobby Deol (Raj), Irfan Khan (Vikram) and Suniel Shetty (Yogi) who are very good friends. Raj and Simran (Sonam Kapoor) are happily married until she finds out that Raj has been cheating on her. While Yogi’s wife Maya (Celina Jaithley) and Vikram’s wife Shivani (Rimi Sen) already suspect their straying husbands, for Simran it comes as a shocker. On Maya’s insistence she hires a private detective Kishen (Akshay Kumar) who is quite a pro at as Akshay put it “exposing what dirty doggies do”. From here on starts a cat-mouse race where Kishen tries to prove the infidelity of the three (especially Raj) and they in turn – under the guidance and advice of Vikram – try to get out of the mess.

Anees has already tried his hand at the concept of straying husbands earlier in No Entry and this topic has already been used to the hilt in many other Bolly flicks like Do Not Disturb, Life in a Metro, Biwi No 1, Masti. So does this movie have anything new to offer? Very frankly, no. Like the case is with most of our Bollywood movies these days, the first half of the movie is pretty good but tends to falter badly post interval. Aneez Bazmee while talking exclusively to BollySpice had said that what makes Thank You different from other movies on the same concept is that along with comedy it has drama as well. Which I think has acted as a bane for this movie. What starts off as a comedy slowly turns into a sad emotional story in the second half, which leaves you wondering about the u-turn.

As far as the performances go, Akshay Kumar does what he is good at, the nth time. And surprisingly doesn’t have the entire movie centered around him. Bobby really doesn’t have many comedy scenes to his credit and plays his part of the husband pretty well. The super talented Irrfan as the male chauvinist husband who keeps his wife under his control and gives advice to his friends on how to achieve the same is truly amazing to watch. Using his typical deadpan look – which works for him every time – his transformation as a confident strict husband in the first half to a meek confused one in the latter is worth a watch.

Surprisingly, the man who manages to bring out the maximum laughs is Suniel in the character of Yogi. Probably after a long time he has found a role which could do him justice. Female leads are a bit of a disappointment with Celina having practically nothing to do. She disappears in the second half without any explanation and resurfaces only at the climax. Sonam is a big disappointment indeed who looks lifeless and expressionless throughout the movie. We sure hope she gets her act together fast if she wishes to do some meaty roles. However, Rimi Sen is a delight to watch. In fact of the three, one can safely say that she has a lot to perform and she does it well.

Songs by Pritam are pretty decent with Razia, ‘Pyaar Do Pyaar Lo’ and ‘Full Volume’ among the popular ones. Cameos by Mukesh Tiwari and Rakhi Tandon seem unpolished while Akshay’s story with Vidya Balan just before climax seems out of place.

What starts as a funny watchable movie doesn’t exactly end that way and somewhere Aneez’s story is to blame for that. Whether to watch this movie or not is something we leave up to you. Let’s just say that this one is not a very bad movie but it isn’t a very good one either.

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Movie Review: Source Code

Eight minutes. That’s how long Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has to find the bomb and the bomber of a commuter train. The catch is that Colter can go back for the last eight minutes over and over until he completes this assignment. But time is of the essence. This explosion is believed to be the first in a series of planned attacks. The longer Colter takes in solving the mystery bomber, the more lives will be at stake.

Directed by Duncan Jones (“Moon”), “Source Code” is a mashup of “Groundhog Day,” “Deja Vu,” “Inception,” “Speed” and “Unstoppable.”Colter, an army helicopter pilot, finds himself waking up in the body of another man, sitting in a train heading for Chicago. To his bewilderment, a friendly passenger sitting across him, “Christina,” (Michelle Monaghan), keeps addressing him as “Sean.

Colter discovers that he’s participating in an experimental government program called “Source Code.” Invented by a single-minded scientist, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), a soldier with a specific condition can transmogrify into another person and experience the last eight minutes of another’s life. In this case, Colter inhabits the body of a doomed teacher, Sean Fentress.

Transported back into reality and situated within a capsule, Colter has been communicating with a military commander, Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), who monitors his progress. To his frustration, Colleen is tight-lipped about everything else other than the mission, although she turns more sympathetic to Colter’s plight as time passes.

With every eight minutes passed and back, Colter’s investigation deepens. He expects the routine incidents before they happen, notices the small details about the behaviors of his fellow passengers, and become more aware about his surroundings. Colter also realizes that he falls a little harder and harder for Christina each time. As Sean, he asks her if she could get on the Internet and find out about his soldier ‘”friend,” Colter Stevens. What he learns shocks him.

There is no way of getting around the repetitive scenes, but every time there’s more to discern. Halfway through it appears that the story is heading into one direction, but it shifts gear in a way that makes sense if you pay attention to a certain clue involving a couple passengers.

Gyllenhaal portrays Colter’s confusion, disorientation, determination and resignation honorably. What he attempts to do in the last eight minutes of his final return, whilst he has another choice to do something else, shows his decency. With Monaghan’s Christina, they’re very like-able and will make anyone wish they beat their fate. In reality, passenger Christina Warren is reported to have perished in the exploding train.

The philosophical questions are more intriguing than the pseudo-science behind the eight-minute window. The Source Code program is designed not to alter the past, but affect the future. But is that all there is to it? Do you believe in a parallel universe? Does alternate reality exist on a different path?

The penultimate scene on the train showing the facial expression of every passenger is comforting. Everything wraps up as wholly as it could. “Source Code” is a streamlined, suspenseful sci-fi thriller served with heart.

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Sucker Punch - movie review

Zack Snyder's odious Sucker Punch opens with a dialogue-free tableau that introduces us, sort of, to the back story of our blank-faced heroine, Babydoll (Emily Browning) and her sister (Frederique De Raucort).

Their mother has just died, which means their stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) has free reign to get down to the important business of trying to rape both girls. Attempting to defend them both against his advances, Babydoll accidentally and inexplicably kills her little sister (who has presumably already been violated by dad) instead. She is promptly shipped off to Lennox House For The Mentally Insane, dressed in skin-coloured, rain-soaked PJs all the better for clinging to her every fun-sized curve.

All this is set to an interminable sing-song cover of Sweet Dreams, because, like, you know, she's actually in a living nightmare or some shit. It's not the first sledgehammer-subtle song choice; the soundtrack of covers and mash-ups signpost every narrative twist, every intended mood. Thus, when we hit Lennox's corridors, it's a drippy cover of - LOL! - The Pixies' Where Is My Mind. Because people in asylums ask that very question, geddit!

Lennox is the sort of asylum where inmates are handed a kicky mini-skirt and a few sticks of Rimmel kohl upon arrival; it's full of Very Bad Girls who wear the latest in mentally ill chic.

There she meets, in descending order of expendability, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish, slumming it beyond all comprehension) and her sister Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung).

Their allegedly Polish music therapist, Dr. Polski Ogorki Gorski (Carla Gugino, in generic Eastern European mode), gets them to do sexy dances that transport them into parallel dimensions, or something. Suddenly they are dancers in a low-lit kitten club, and the creepy orderly Blue (Oscar Isaac) is now their swanky pimp. I think.

I mean, I'm not really sure. I don't think Zack Snyder is, either; evidently the 'You will be unprepared' tagline was also the script editor's professional motto. Sucker Punch is an insulting afterthought of a film; the worst sort of "non-linear" narrative that makes gestures towards depth or subversiveness but is really just lazy. It's the screenwriting equivalent of those novelty clocks with the numbers jumbled that say 'Who Cares?'

Anyway, Babydoll lap-dances her way through the looking-glass into ancient Japan (or maybe China; all look same, right?), where she meets a Wise Man meditating all up in some candles. No, really, that's his name, Wise Man, and he's played by Scott Glenn as a Home Brand Carradine.

He kits her out with some weapons: a katana, and a handgun that dangles kawaii phone charms for no reason other than to further fuel the queasy mix of sexualisation and infantilisation that Snyder has marinated the doll-like Browning in.

(Glenn's character appears at the beginning of each action sequence, spouting a different motivational poster phrase each time, like "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything", and, er, "Don't ever write a check with your mouth you can't cash with your ass". Pro tip, cheers Zen bro.)

Then a miracle happens: Skunk Anansie are magically beamed into the new century from the toilet circuit venue they were last spotted at in 1998, and they embellish Bjork's An Army Of Me while Babydoll F-B-F-LPs some big robot samurai.

Babydoll returns from Planet Gyrate to the magical brothel of dreams, and hatches a plan to escape, using the instructions of Mystical Kimono Dude - they must procure a map, a knife, fire, a key, and... something else. The final element, much like on Captain Planet, must be discovered by Babydoll through the course of their adventures.

And those adventures involve, variously, kablammo-ing a horde of steampunk Nazi zombie soldiers, committing dragon infanticide, and dismantling a bomb on a train heading toward the International Daft Punk Cosplayers Convention.

We don't really give a shit about any of our heroines, because neither does the film: they have no inner life, no story beyond "they are sex slaves in foxy pin-up outfits". They eventually begin to drop like flies, dispatched with increasingly distressing callousness.

Babydoll is the most sinister of all Snyder's creations, however - for the first half an hour or so of the film, she is mute (beyond a few Nell-like moans and yelps). When she does finally talk, she might as well have just stayed silent. She exists for no reason other than to... shit, son, I don't know.

She is Hello Kitty, voiceless and cute; set adrift on misogyny bliss.

In the end - and fuck spoiler alerts, this film doesn't deserve that level of respect for its narrative - it turns out it wasn't really even her story. We know that because, in the Sucker Punch universe, being a hero means inviting gang rape so someone else can slip out the gates.

Yes, Sucker Punch is surely the questionable zenith of the "rape as character motivation" trope that has infected film and comic books with increasing aggressiveness over the past decade or so. The air at Lennox is thick with the threat of rape, and most of the inmates have been abused before their incarceration; Blue uses sexual violence or its threat to control his charges.

(Carla Gugino should consider looking into an AVO against Snyder, given she has appeared in two of his films and had her characters sexually assaulted in both.)

Outside of the asylum/brothel, the violence is less expressly sexual, but it's still sexualised. As the girls fly through the air pulling Matrix moves, we're treated to plenty of slow-motion nude upskirt oops shots.

Snyder directs all these scenes with an onanistic boredom; every time the girls land one of those Crouching Stripper, Hidden Tampon leaps, they do so in the same half-kneeling-one-hand-outstretched-before-looking-up-at-the-camera-while-wind-whips-their-hair manner. Every time. Just in case we didn't get it the first ten times.

(While we're at it, can we call an international moratorium on the hopelessly stale "machine-gun shells falling, tinkling, to the ground in slow motion" shot? It is to 21st century action cinema as the "archers shoot arrows > arrows fly through air in graceful arc > arrows hit target" series of shots was to the late-20th century.)

Let's get one thing straight: there is nothing remotely empowering about Sucker Punch's depiction of women. The "characters" (a generous term) are ciphers; they drift through the "story" with only the barest hint of motivation.

The violence the female characters face ranges from cartoonish to shockingly brutal. There's no sense that Snyder has given any of it much deep thought, unlike say Paul Verhoeven, who at least had some cultural commentary packed into Showgirls' moments of sexual violence.

As the unpleasant rapped-over "remix" of Queen's I Want It All runs, through one hurr durr scene of orc-fighting action, "You got what I want, and I need it right now/Give it to me, baby, I don't care how ... If I don't get what I want then I'll take it in blood, a queasy thug."

(Any word on whether said rapper, "Armageddon aka Geddy", might actually be Zack Snyder?)

That the fight scene wardrobe budget appears to have been covered by a few Victoria's Secret vouchers doesn't bear mentioning. All that's missing is Mickey Rooney standing on a street corner in the middle of the action, with taped eyes, yelling "Girls, girls, girls, look pretty for you, sucky-punchy, eye-fucky you long time, turn on any man."

(Don't worry about the apparently barely-legal thrills, though, the film makes a point of letting us know that Babydoll is actually 20 and merely looks 14. That's much better! Everyone can enjoy that!)

The cast spend the entire film looking vaguely panicked, like Snyder rolled tape and then went off to get a sandwich; watching actors left without direction is like watching suddenly orphaned children try to create a functioning family unit. Jon Hamm sleepwalks through the film as the lobotomy practitioner, nicknamed "The High Roller" because, I dunno, he'll fuck you in the eyeball for lots of money?

Its male stars - particularly Isaac - play it sweaty-faced and blue-balled, as though perpetually on the brink of climax. And why wouldn't they? Sucker Punch is the worst kind of prick-tease, a lifeless shoot-em-up peep show; when his stars' energy levels drop, Pimp Zacky slaps them around a bit to liven them up.

The soundtrack is comprised of dunderheaded '90s-sounding covers of tenuously thematically relevant songs - Emiliana Torrini doing White Rabbit, Carla Azar/Alison Mosshart doing Tomorrow Never Knows, and so on. But why stop there? Why not just get The Vengaboys to cover They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! and call it a day?

This is a joyless film - and, considering its designs on itself as an action-packed burlesque, curiously prudish. In one scene, Blondie empties a few million rounds of lead into a dragon (yes, really), she yells "You mother-", the next two syllables merely mouthed. Is it too much to ask for a supposedly subversive action opus to at least swear properly?

Oh, that's right, it is - because Sucker Punch is PG-13 (M in Australia), so that young people the world over can revel in its gee whiz spectacle of bloodless yet sexualised violence.

Look, this film manages to be ugly, stupid, offensive, depressing, sexist and boring in equal measures. By the time Gugino and Isaac's droopy cover of Love Is The Drug (is it, Snyder? Is it really?) fires up over the credits, you will wish you could have got a two-for-one deal on Babydoll's lobotomy.

Here's a different way to experience Sucker Punch: open a bunch of tabs; in one, go to YouTube, load up Leeroy Jenkins; load up Suicide Girls in another tab; then take a bunch of downers and flick furiously between the two tabs while you play the Godzilla and Spawn soundtracks.

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Movie Review: Insidious

“Insidious” is a haunted-house movie that has some of the most scary and indelible images I’ve seen in any horror film in decades. Yes, it’s that unsettling. The movie was directed by James Wan, who’s best known for making the original “Saw,” and produced by Oren Peli, the creator of the “Paranormal Activity” films.

It’s about a couple, played by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne, whose home is plagued by the usual clanks, growls, and playfully sinister disturbances. Then one of their young sons lapses into a coma. As it turns out, though, it’s his spirit that’s been hijacked, overtaken by ghosts who have a way of showing their creepy, smiling, old-fashioned nightmare faces at just the right moment to goose you with anxiety.

Lin Shaye plays the psychic exorcist who can see into their world, and her fluky cornball intensity helps to lift Insidious into a realm of menacing excitement.

As a director, James Wan is better known for severed limbs than subtlety, but here he reaches back to the stately spookiness of the 1962 low-budget classic “Carnival of Souls,” adding a touch of early David Lynch, to conjure a vision of hell that is terrifying in its dreamlike banality. Like most haunted-house films, “Insidious” is a contraption, but it’s one that won’t let go of you.

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Movie review: 'Super'

Like a bad dream that makes one wonder what bizarre anxieties brought on such misery, writer-director James Gunn's so-called comedy "Super" flings around its dingy shocks with little feel for context, wit or filmmaking skill.

Attempting "Taxi Driver"-style seaminess in superhero-parody guise, it drags us through the psychotic, downward spiral of Frank (Rainn Wilson of "The Office"), a disturbed, loser-ish fry cook. When his beautiful ex-addict wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a smarmy drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), Frank finalizes his break from reality by turning himself into a costumed, wrench-wielding vigilante called the Crimson Bolt, who in action is decidedly more deranged assailant than do-gooder. Adding hanger-on sidekick Boltie (Ellen Page), a flowering sadist, hardly helps.

Condescending and satirically obvious about comic-book obsessives while revving up for a hyper-violent good-versus-evil blowout, Gunn fancies himself a hero-worship provocateur, manipulating our movie-pleasure sensors as he follows moments of mockably unhinged behavior with semi-serious ditherings about Frank's naive rescue fantasies.

But where Gunn's last feature "Slither" was an enjoyably icky, funny riff on schlocky horror tropes, the split-personality "Super" merely repels with half-baked ideas, Wilson's and Page's scorched-earth overacting and atonal bursts of jokey gore. To this "Kapow" and "Bam" world, please add "Bleccch."

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