'Sucker Punch' Movie Review: Girls in Swords, Guns, and Reveries

"Sucker Punch" is filled with steampunk anime art, weapons-and-corsets fantasy, and action references to awesome films. Personally, its physical elements make me biased with my take on it. As an avid collector of bladed stuff and as a hard-core fan of the genre's aesthetics, I merely watched the movie for its wallpaper-worthy fight scenes, which was finely backed up by a really cool soundtrack. Beyond these, there's nothing much to expect. Ultimately, it's a guilty pleasure meant for fanboys and fangirls.

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More About "Sucker Punch" at: 'Sucker Punch:' A Guilty Pleasure from a '300' Fan

Director Zack Snyder and his team clearly had fun envisioning this type of epic action fantasy with sexy female warriors bringing mayhem to zombies, dragons, and robots. Although it is generally a "movie meant for the boys" with the all-female characters ultimately dressed in skimpy outfits, there are also some female viewers who may find it fun to check out hot women in kick-ass scenes and see them using feminine power to their advantage.

Approaching a certain level of enjoyment through its audio-visual flair, this movie should be taken as a mindless video game-ish flick entirely meant for sensory fun and nothing more. While some conservative and less open-minded ones may kind of question its treatment, which works in between soft-porn and empowered women's struggle towards liberation, it is really not meant as a serious offer. I think its ambitious exercise on fans' guilty pleasure knows where it stands between that thin and fragile line of stylish entertainment and derogative extravaganza.

As many describe it, "Sucker Punch" is packaged more like a "300" with females. That is a clearly delivered expectation as its computer-generated adventure scenarios and music video look are filled with visually enticing sets and girls in racy clothing striking all the evil males to the ground. However, unlike Snyder's "300," this one leaves too much of nothing in terms of story value and emotional investment. Whether or not somebody dies, the audience wouldn't care. The only thing people would be concerned about is how to roll their eyeballs around the screen for the next dazzling, fully packed shot of women showing off their escapist-bound physical strength and power.

"Sucker Punch" features many self-consciously stunning moments without much wit, innovation, and depth. It elicits such a sensory overload and stupefaction in lobotomy-like fashion, which are clearly geared towards the willing viewers. Yet, after all the impressive effects mashed up for kitsch and overindulgence, it is pretty short on establishing believable characters and delivering challenging performances due to the lackluster value of the movie's characterizations and storytelling.

This movie lives up to its title in the way it captured my attention. Everything doesn't add up to anything of prime cinematic value. Ironically, this is always important for a film viewer like me, but in a very rare occasion as this, I was hooked like a sucker punched victim willing to embrace the audio-visual elements of this hollow spectacle.

"Sucker Punch" is not for all. Its eye candy look and cool sound design and music may go more than a mile, but sustaining itself as a quality motion picture offer is too much of an expectation. On a technical level, this 109-minute action flick involves an utterly serious skill in designing a world of ambitious art that excites and dazzles. And being an incredibly flawed piece, the action ultimately wins over the story.

"Sucker Punch" is filled with a number of movie references to the point that I made it a habit to figure out what films are seen on such scene throughout watching it on the big screen. These are especially very apparent during the fight sequences. Apart from the many war movies, animes, and other borrowed Asian elements in the movie, it showcases a mix of direct and indirect references to films including "Moulin Rouge," "Full Metal Jacket," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Star Wars," "Iron Man," "Lord of the Rings," "Matrix," "Armageddon," "Shutter Island," "Black Swan," "Batman Forever" "District 9," "Kill Bill," and "300."

Snyder seems to have enjoyed that fine time of doing the kitschy and crazy things he wanted to see in a movie -- and he did it. However, it is quite disappointing that he used too much to do too little, which became the movie's biggest weakness.

On an escapist level, "Sucker Punch" works fine as a video game reel that adopts an imaginary world inside an imaginary framework. Its flawed storytelling attempts to redeem itself by merely featuring illogical fight scenes filled with CGI cartoon violence, steampunk Nazi zombies, interplanetary robots, victimized dragons, and giant samurai characters. Clearly, Snyder is one big boy with lots of toys.

All characters in the movie work in superficial fashion. These include the main girls Baby Doll (Emily Browning), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). Even the supporting roles of Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), Wise Man (Scott Glenn), High Roller/Doctor (Jon Hamm), the cook (Malcolm Scott), and the stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) are quite shallow and very one-dimensional.

Because of being a fan, I had a fun time watching "Sucker Punch" on the big screen. However, this movie is really meant for those whose would find pleasure on thoroughly labored fight scenes complete with shots of swords, guns, and blasts -- even with a very much bogged down story and logic. Although it has that graphic novel look, this is actually Snyder's first film not based on another work. It is also his first live action movie not to receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Outside the promising concept about girls going beyond what reality brings to escape from their prison, the movie merely sidetracks in cinematic quality in favor of cool visuals that don't necessarily make sense. Liking or not liking this movie really depends on one's more distinct entertainment preferences. Its muddled exposition, flat characterizations, and poor plotting pull much of the story down. Yet, for those who rather like its single-minded devotion to many sporadic seconds of fetishistic visuals, this action flick is an awesome head trip.