Being a Zack Snyder movie, there are inevitably an awful lot of defenders out there who’ll back Sucker Punch to the hilt, but from a purely analytical perspective it’s unquestionably the worst entry in his filmography.
None of his features have fared worse among critics or earned less at the box office than his fantastical descent into whatever it is he’s supposed to be doing, although the filmmaker has always remained adamant that it was satirical from the very beginning, and it was everyone else who failed to see it.
Heavily criticized for fetishizing and sexualizing its protagonists who would wear skimpy outfits while wielding gargantuan weapons, Snyder has continually argued that he was being deliberately subversive. It remains open to interpretation seeing as this is the guy who tried to justify “Martha,” but he even admitted to Total Film that he didn’t think he went far enough.
“Sucker Punch is probably the most obvious example of straightforward, pure satire that I’ve made. And I still think I didn’t go far enough, because a lot of people thought that it was just a movie about scantily clad girls dancing around in a brothel. I’m like, ‘Really? Did you see Watchmen?” That film is completely a superhero deconstruction from the drop, which is all Alan Moore. That’s the thing I’ve found really interesting and motivating throughout my career. And I think that, seen as a whole, it’s more obvious than on a movie-to-movie basis.”
While it’s no doubt entirely true and 100 percent accurate that was indeed Snyder’s methodology to crafting Sucker Punch, he’s never been one renowned subtlety or nuance, which is presumably why the end product has generated so much debate.