What's the purpose?

Rating: 5/10 (26 June 2011)

A young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather, after she accidentally kill her little sister. Not able to cope with reality, she retreats to an alternate reality where she comes up with a plan to escape. That's putting it lightly.
If you want a more literal translation, for some reason she chooses to escape to a whore house fantasy, where she dances for people. When she dances for people she escapes yet again, to a more stylized and action oriented fantasy. I think Snyder needed an excuse to show his creative imagery and instead of trying to craft a reasonable story, he throws together some kind of conglomerate mess of proportions. Here is a guy who has had success in adapting other works of art. Whether it's a remake (Dawn of the Dead) or a graphic novel (300, Watchman) Snyder's only real task was being able to translate something already written and visualized, to the big screen. This was his first attempt at something original. He fails.
As a visual spectacle, it's great. No denying that. But I recall a film by the name of Avatar being blasted for it's unoriginal story and the fact that it relied too heavily on visuals. Sucker Punch, while being original, lacks any sense of purpose in its story. Why do we care for these characters? The answer is we don't. Baby Doll has little to no dialogue, Rocket would make a better lead character to get behind. I felt more emotion for the baby dragon that is slain than any of the female characters that parade around in little to no clothing. A 14 year old boys wet dream.
That's how Sucker Punch comes off as, something Snyder thought up of when he was a kid. The film is for people with ADD, because Snyder hopes you forget the first 20 minutes of the film as he tries to surprise you with the ending, bringing it back to the beginning again. Why do we care for something that doesn't happen. Everything we see is her fantasy. When the ending is revealed as to what truly happen, we never get to see that reality. Snyder needs to mature as a filmmaker and stop treading around in these waters.
They seem to give up on their quest for objects half way through as well. They need a map in their first mission, they get it. Fire in the second, the succeed. A knife in their third and all of a sudden they are trying to steal a bomb? I'm sure there is an explanation for this somewhere, but it's missing in the film. Watching Inception beforehand will give people a better understand of a level within a level scenario that is attempted here. Inception is the better film and it pulls it off way more effectively, despite having more confusing elements, it comes off clearer than Sucker Punch.
A good soundtrack and entertaining visuals aren't enough for me to recommend this film. I'm sure the target audience will love it. Young boys who no attention span. It tries to cram every fantasy element into one: Dungeons and Dragons, Futuristic Science Fiction, Alternate History. The film has Nazis that look like Helghast from Killzone, dragons, robots, giant rock samurai that bleeds light. So many cool elements that are jammed together into a mess of a story line. Give me a reason to care for these 'fantasy' sequences and this film could have rocked my socks. Unfortunately I sat there wondering why I should even care, instead of enjoying myself. That's where the problem lies. You'll be wondering why should I care?