Chicks, guns, explosions and warriors... Well, it sounded good...

Rating: 5/10 (17 August 2012)

There is no denying that Zack Snyder is a very visionary director. If anyone has seen his graphic novel styled movies 300 and Watchmen, it's clear to see where his profession is. To dazzle the eyes of his viewers which he does incredibly well every time. But his story telling is where things begin to flop.
Yes, the visuals in Sucker Punch are amazing. We have sword wielding, guns blasting, explosions going off, great big fire breathing dragons, planes in the sky, battlefields, chicks slaying stuff everywhere, but do I see a story anywhere? Beyond all that marvellous CGI, surely there must be a story? No, there isn't. Even the makers of this film got lost in the wonders of the pointless action that kept getting rammed down our throats to a point where it just became BORING. Sure, seeing chicks smash crap up and slay bad guys is fun at first, but after a while it gets to repetitive that gets you asking: "Okay, can we see some story now?"
Sucker Punch revolves around the character Babydoll, who accidentally shoots and kills her sister when in self defence of her abusive step father. She is sent to a mental institution for girls, where she is joined by her "comrades" Sweet Pea, Amber, Blondie, and Rocket. Although the place is meant to be a mental institution, it seems more like a strip club the way the girls are treated by the man who runs the place. The acting of the five girls are very bland, all the lines are said with no emotion and they all just seem very wooden acted and two dimensional. Sure, they pull it off in the battles and action scenes, because all they have to do is scream and shoot things and blow things up which, let's be honest, even the worst actors can do. Even Emily Browning, who did a great role in A Series of Unfortunate Events, was sadly a disappointment in this.
Now, Babydoll has no intention of staying in the institution. She dreams up a pretend world filled with dragons and warriors and Nazi zombies, where she is told she has to collect four items so she can escape the institution. Seeing as all the action takes place in their crazy messed up heads, I can't see how any of it matters to us. Sure, seeing Emily Browning battle three massive Samurai Warriors is fun and exciting at first, but then we drift further and further from the real world and more into this dream world that a ten year old would create if he was bored in math class. We've all been there.
Yes, all the girls are insane, why else would they imagine all the battle sequences that happen so repeatedly? But Sucker Punch, believe it or not, started out promising, for about 10 minutes. It had to potential to actually be a good movie, but the more and more action sequences and CGI they throw into one scene, the storyline just gets thinner and thinner and eventually disappears where we don't care what happens to the characters anymore.
Sucker Punch will, without doubt, dazzle you with its visuals and mindless action. It could be fun with a bunch of mates, if all you want to see is chicks and robots and dragons with some booze. But if you're after a serious story with well developed characters and a storyline that stays strong all the way through, then I'd give it a miss.
CGI sequences= Stunning, 10/10
Story and characters= 3/10