3. Zack Snyder - Sucker Punch (2011)
If you quickly glance through Zack Snyder's filmography, you'll notice that every year, his movies get more and more CGI-heavy. It's no surprise, then, that
Dawn of the Dead - which is relatively CG-free - is still his most accomplished work to date, and
Man of Steel, his recent reboot of the Superman franchise, directed under the wing of Christopher Nolan, is one of his lesser efforts. After
Dead, Snyder made
300, which was a huge success at the box office, a movie that had a genuine cultural impact, and marked the director as somebody to watch.
Watchmen came next, a solid effort, but nothing to write home about, giving Snyder's obvious intention to stick to the source material as closely as possible. His next live-action feature (if you can call it that), however, was a step too far - and one in entirely wrong direction. Whereas
300 made sense of its visuals whilst clinging to an interesting story, and
Watchmen used just the right amount of CGI,
Sucker Punch was an exercise in indulgence, a good-looking but ultimately hollow product, lacking story and worthwhile characters. No surprise, then, that at this point audiences had become sick of Snyder's schtick - it flopped, making a mere $7 million profit.