Movie Review: 'Sucker Punch' Packs Just Enough Punch

InSucker Punch, Emily Browning plays Baby Doll, a young girl who is locked away in a mental asylum by her abusive stepfather where she is scheduled to undergo lobotomy in five days. While there, her mind retreats into a semi-fantasy world where she and four female inmates are plotting to escape the facility. She then retreats to a deeper fantasy world, where she is fighting samurais, robotic soldiers, and dragons with her four friends. There, she is told about the five items that she needs to find in the facility that will help her escape from the asylum.

The film starts off stylistically surreal. The muted colors and sharp contrasts convey a nightmarish reality that flows without words, much like a music video. With sharp attention to detail, close-ups, and a moody cover of Sweet Dreams (that Annie Lennox made famous) in the background, the scenes that unfold are implied more than spelt out. Within five minutes of the film, Baby Doll winds up in the asylum, falsely accused of murdering her sister and then attacking her stepfather. As she enters the theater section of the asylum, the room is morphed into a night club / bordello, where the orderlies are now formally-dressed night club operators. Here, she befriends Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung) who are stuck there as late night entertainers. Every so often, when Baby Doll is forced to do a dance for a client or an audience, she retreats to yet another fantasy world (think Inception, like a dream within a dream) where she is given a different mission each time to battle samurai robots and other nefarious baddies with her four friends.

While fighting in this alternate world, these characters wear what would be considered fetish fashion-they are in military, leather, and school girl outfits. While one can argue that these clothes are simply what comic book heroines wear, it is perhaps more of an allusion to the fact that the four characters are, in reality, prostitutes inside the facility. Many of the fantastic scenes appear to be metaphors, giving some clue of what could be happening outside the fantasy world.

Emily Browning and the female crew do a great job looking cool while shootings guns, doing crazy jumps, and swinging swords. There is no doubt that director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) can direct effectively choreographed fighting scenes. There are lots of it and tons of explosions and hails of bullets. This world uses video game physics, with nods to anime and sci-fi / fantasy / geek culture. To a casual viewer, however, this will seem like a waste of time, an overt focus on style over substance (and it is rather true). While these action scenes are impressive to look at, they are almost entirely computer-generated, and given that this is a fantasy world, any tension of being in actual danger is minimized (a similar issue I had with Inception). With that said, this film does quite well in the action scenes. The visuals are amazing. It's a pity there's more beauty than tension. As for the plot itself, it isn't too complex.

Admittedly, this film could have been a strong psychological thriller had the focus on style and pop culture was less pronounced and at least less modern. One assumes this film takes place around the 50's (or earlier), but many of the fantasy action scenes have a modern sensibility in fashion, guns, and mechs. Given that this is all part of Baby Doll's fantasy, one wonders if she may have been playing video games, watching anime, and reading modern sci-fi books. Nevertheless, this film packs enough punch where it counts.

My Rating: *** out of **** stars.