Film Review: Sucker Punch

I guess you could say I'm a fan of Zack Snyder's work. I still remember vividly coming out of the cinema after seeing Dawn Of The Dead, utterly stunned that I had just seen a remake almost as good as the original. The original Dawn was a classic, but this remake was brilliant, it's the film that made running zombies OK in my book. Sadly, that says a lot for my love for Dawn 2004.

While not incessantly quoting it with friends for months on end, I still dug 300. Again, I didn't like it as much as everyone else did, and it's since been outdone by the crazy Spartacus TV show. Still, it was a solid and original film.

Watchmen, I thought was just fantastic also, and I keep meaning to pick up the Blu Ray of the Director's Cut, no matter how long it runs for, it's a true epic. But I have to admit, I had no clue he directed owl-animation Legends Of The Guardians last year, till I just looked on IMDB to double check a release date.

Anyhow, this brings us to Sucker Punch, which I bought on Blu Ray blind based on some favorable words from friends, and the directors credentials, and while it was enjoyable in places, I was disappointed as a whole.

A young girl, who we only know as Baby Doll throughout (Emily Browning) is sent to an insane asylum by her abusive stepfather after an incident involving herself and her sister. Once locked in, she starts to retreat to several alternative realities, where she and her fellow inmates, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), her sister Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung) plot an elaborate escape.

The reality that Baby Doll inhabits predominantly is essentially a brothel, and she sees the main orderly of the hospital as a gangster pimp, a doctor as a dance instructor and a surgeon as a 'High Roller' (Jon Hamm, in a too-small role) whose appearance brings the film to it's climax.

Within that reality, several others are spawned, every time Baby Doll starts dancing, where she initially meets the 'Wise Man' (Scott Glenn), who tells her what she needs to aid her escape, and the dance routines are all distractions so these objects can be taken.

There's a lot to appeal in the other realities, from samurai battles, to fire fights against the Nazi's, to storming a castle whilst battling Orcs, all of the attempts to escape by the girls during the brothel reality are played out in these different surroundings (and one can only assume, in reality at the hospital.)

Now, don't get me totally wrong about the film, the aforementioned sequences are brilliant stuff, they look and sound amazing, and were quite exciting in places, but it just never really went anywhere, just back to the brothel, and it echoed in the rest of the film. Sure, it looks good and has a great soundtrack (most notably a great sequence to Bjork's 'Army Of Me'), but it just was without substance for me. Even the added bonus of several very attractive women running around not wearing much couldn't sway this for me.

Next up for Snyder is 'Man Of Steel', of course, and the disappointment in Sucker Punch still doesn't effect my anticipation for that, I still think he is a great choice, and you can't really go as out there with Superman as you can with this sort of thing.

The imagination, you can do with whatever you want, which is why I never levelled the accusation during this review that the film "didn't make sense" as I'm sure some people might, it's about alternate realities created by the mind - how many dreams have you had that never made sense? But even with that in mind, I struggle to see the point in Sucker Punch.

**1/2
The epitome of style over substance. Looks great, sounds great, has some terrific action sequences, but everything else left this reviewer kind of flat and let down.