The Snyder Film Everyone Hated is Back With a Director's Cut

Summary

• Zack Snyder has faced criticism for nearly every movie he's made in over a decade, but none has been as panned as Sucker Punch.
• Neither critics nor audiences embraced the film, viewing it as misogynistic and exploitative.
• Snyder believes he can change audiences' minds by releasing a director's cut with reshot scenes and a different ending.

Speaking of Zack Snyder, you either love his cinematic language or you hate it wholeheartedly. Exciting visual style and flashy action scenes immediately catch the eye, but the next moment they become boring because of the lack of substance behind them. The filmmaker's loudly proclaimed ideas about critiquing the tradition of storytelling in the capitalist film industry and the misogynistic treatment of women are immediately thwarted by clichéd storytelling and the exploitation of female characters.

Zack Snyder has been out of favor with film critics and general audiences for the past decade or more, as almost every project he's done has turned out to be a flop. Such was the case with the recent Rebel Moon, arguably one of the most ambitious projects in recent years, originally conceived as a Star Wars script. But as ambiguous as Snyder's work may be in most people's minds, there are some movies he would like to remake himself. For example, he plans to release a director's cut of his most critically panned film, Sucker Punch.

The Most Disastrous Film of Snyder's Career…

The 2011 psychological action film Sucker Punch tells the story of a young woman (Emily Browning) locked in a mental institution awaiting a lobotomy. However, she can overcome the oppressive forces in her head by immersing herself in surreal fantasy worlds, where she and the other inmates fight to finally escape the institution.

The film is an attempt to criticize pop culture and the chauvinistic exploitation of women as objects in the eyes of male consumers. Only the effect is the opposite. Although the events take place in the head of the protagonist and should therefore be interpreted quite intuitively, the movie actually provides almost nothing but more objectification.

'Sucker Punch is probably the most obvious example of straightforward, pure satire that I've made,' Snyder shared, expressing his frustration that audiences 'didn't get' his movie. '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.'

…May Get a Director's Cut

Alas, the movie was largely the way it came out because Snyder had to adjust to the PG-13 rating and cut many R-rated scenes that implied a much deeper emotional experience for the female characters. As a result, he wants to reshoot some of the scenes, bring back the original cast, and change the ending.

'I'm working with Warner Bros. to try and find a window to go back in. Even though we did an extended version, it’s not the fully realized movie,' he told Inverse, sharing his intention to finally release an R-rated version.

Snyder is quick to blame external factors for the failure of his projects, saying that the director's cut will fix the situation and that audiences will finally be able to appreciate his original vision. Such was the case with the controversial Justice League, whose director's cut earned Snyder an additional $70 million for reshoots but ended up being a pretentious, artsy pulp fiction full of pointless pathos and annoying slow-mo.

Will the director deliver a game changer with the director's cut of Sucker Punch? Will he finally be able to give the female characters the empowerment, the sense of control over their bodies and their destinies that he originally envisioned? Of course, only time will tell, as Warner Bros. has yet to make any announcements and Zack Snyder is clearly in for a long negotiation.

Source: Total Film, Inverse.