Sucker Punch Review

It has some great ideas and some equally great actions sequences, but ultimately Sucker Punch is held back by a poorly implemented plot and equally poor acting. That said, if you like hot ladies, you'll probably enjoy this.

Sucker Punch is a strange film, mainly because I can’t really gauge what kind of film it is. Everything about the marketing for it portrayed a straight action film, but in the end it is much more than that, and not always in a good way.

Sucker Punch is director (and this time writer) Zack Snyder’s first attempt on a film not based upon some other medium. His other films, Dawn of the Dead, 300, Legends of the Guardians (Owls with helmets!) and Watchmen were all have their basis upon other things. Either a previous movie, in the form of Dawn of the Dead, a novel; such as Legends of the Guardians, or upon a Graphic novel;in the case of both 300 and Watchmen. Despite the fact that this is a unique and original IP, it seems to take its chops directly from these mediums, not just individually, but all at once, in a big jumble of video game, manga and graphic novel craziness. It is as if Snyder took everything that he liked and decided to shove it all into a single project. Although this is ambitious, and in some ways exciting, in the end it doesn’t really pay off.

The story begins following ‘Baby Doll’, played by Emily Brown, being institutionalised after she accidentally shot her sister while trying to defend herself against her evil step-father. This opening premise is put forward in a rather well done opening sequence, reminiscent of the intro the Up, with these events being carried out in a sort of music video-esque sequence with no dialogue. Arriving at the Insane Asylum, Baby Doll’s step father bribes a corrupt orderly to forge the asylums Doctor's, (Vera Gorski played by Carla Gugino), signature to have baby doll lobotomised, which will take place in five days time. Hence, Baby Doll decides that she must escape with the help of her 3 new friends, Sweet Pea (played by Abbie Cornish), Rocket (played by Jena Malone), Blondie (played by Venessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame…) and finally Amber (played by Jamie Chung.) To do this, as you may have seen in the trailer, they must find five items to aid their escape. Hence throughout the film they attempt to find these five items and then escape. Seems simple enough eh?

Well, onto this Snyder adds a couple of layers. Firstly, pretty much straight after entering the Asylum, ‘Baby Doll’ ostensibly retreats within herself, transforming the dirty and horrible asylum into an equally sordid brothel/burlesque house (/orphanage?) ran by the mob and ‘Blue’, the distorted image of the corrupt orderly. Much of the film takes part in this second layer, though it does an extremely poor job of explaining why this is happening; the film suddenly switches from asylum to Brothel without a moments hesitation and without a ounce of prior explanation. The film remains within this context for almost the whole feature, rarely if at all returning to the Asylum, though as the film spends so little time there it is sometimes difficult to understand where the characters are, back in the real world, or in this second layer of imagination within Baby Doll’s mind. Obviously, in the context of the film, she has retreated into this second layer to protect herself, and it is here that her and her friends decide to work together and capture these five items, with Baby Doll ‘dancing’ to distract the various gross male caricatures that inhabit this strange place, who have their basis in equally sordid characters in the real world. Obviously this ‘dancing’, in my mind at least, is the substitute in this imaginary world for whatever even more sordid event that is taking place within the confines of the Asylum in order to acquire these items, though this is of course left to the imagination. Again though, the film does a poor job of explaining this. Even for those sharp of mind (yeah like myself!) it is difficult to keep up.

This is not the end to the complexity though. For during these instances, the quartet do not simply steal the item within this second reality, but obviously the trauma of the act is so disturbing for Baby Doll that she must retreat even further into her subconscious. The result? Ridiculous action scenes. Here Baby Doll and her friends have to fight through innumerable enemies to get the heavily stylised object; either hordes of orc-zombie-WW1-german-gaspowered-undead-steampunkeque soldiers, or against a dragon and innumerable orc like fantasy creatures reminiscent of lord of the rings, or in feudal Japan against 30 foot tall samurai dudes with mini guns…and...Space...sci-fi train…robots…Oh and they all have machine guns.

This is every teenage boy’s dream come true. Snyder obviously attempted to throw everything he could think of into these sequences and here I think it really pays off. These sequences are amazing, and I wish there were more of them in the film. Obviously historical inconsistencies aside (German’s weren’t gas powered or Orcs in WW1 – racist!) these sequences are heavily stylised and visually stunning and jam packed with stabbing dudes and well…blowing shit up. Here we see much of the visual effects of 300, with tonnes of slow motion and intense fight scenes, though there is little too no blood. Too be honest I would recommend going too see this film just for these sequences; they are probably the dumbest and most laugh-out-loud ridiculous thing I have seen in the cinema for a long time. That said, they are few in number and sadly the final half of the film is rather lacklustre, and does not like up to these exciting, earlier moments.

The problem with these special scenes are that they are relatively short compared with the length of the film, and between them we return to the Brothel/burlesque house imaginings of Baby Doll for rather dull and uninteresting dialogue as well boiler-plate plot points; I don’t think I will be the only impatiently waiting for the film to get back to the crazy.

It is these moments which obviously the weakest of the film. Much of what these parts throw at the viewer mundane and mostly uninteresting, while the quartet or girls are equally bland. Seemingly Snyder picked the four hottest female actors he could, regardless of quality. Hence we have long boring scenes of wooden and poor dialogue, with ‘Blue’, played by Oscar Isaac being the most interesting and well acted character, though even this is nothing to write home about.

Even within the intense action scenes there are issues. All these sequences are introduced and explained by a wise old man/army general played by Scott Glenn, who lays out the coming plan in a way reminiscent to something that you might see in a video game rather than a film. While all his other lines are made up on innumerable and ultimately pointless one-liners; seriously just loads of one-liners. Moreover, his place within the context of the real world is dubious and never really explained.

There are also a number of parts of the film that remind me a lot of Watchmen, mostly regarding the score. Snyder seems to tend towards putting loud music alongside long sequences of film, with the song taking precedence over the action, as appose to it complementing it. These parts seem more like music videos than anything else and feel sometimes a bit jarring, though not as much as in watchmen, at least for me.

In the end then, Sucker Punch attempts to do a lot, maybe too much. The ideas are good but sometimes they do not mesh well, or do so in a jarring and confusing manner. Meanwhile, there is not enough time effectively explaining the crazy stuff before the crazy stuff happens. Hence while as the viewer you are enjoying (hopefully) this joyful insanity, you can’t help wondering what its all for.

In a way this film reminded me a lot of Inception, and I think Snyder would have done well to take some cues from Christopher Nolan’s film. Here the plot is also just as fantastical and deeply complex, but it takes the time to logically explain to the viewer what is about to happen in a way that adds to the enjoyment of the film. There is nothing like that in Sucker Punch. Meanwhile, although inception deals with something as clearly open for inconsistencies as dream sequences and alter-realities, it never seems to break its own rules and stays consistent within its own universe. Sucker Punch often seems far less thought out, and the odd inconsistency within the premise ultimately confuses the whole, like similar costumes being worn across the multiple levels of reality. That said (and not to turn this into a comparison to inception), this film has no less vision than inception, and its must insane alter-reality sequences make even the dream sequences in inception look bland. Obviously Snyder is trying something very different here, but sadly unlike Nolan, he does not quite pull it off.

Overall, I’m having a difficult time recommending this film. If you like crazy action, hot girls and machine guns, you’ll get a kick out of some of this film. On the other hand, it is much more than this, and the plot takes it in a direction that some might not be able to get behind. Meanwhile the poorly explained complexities and long stretches of uninteresting and poorly acted plot points may put many off. The trailer tricked me here, and it will probably trick others. This is not a straight action romp, there are parts of pure action, but in the end if you aren’t looking for something a little deeper and willing to forgo a number of issues then you won’t enjoy it. On the other hand…30 foot Samurai-statue dudes with mini-guns…you can’t argue with that

Evidently I liked this movie a lot more than some, and I am happy that Snyder attempted something interesting and something a little bit more off the wall than you normally see in such big budget productions, even if it did not pay off. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. (Edit: Superman...hmmm)