A fantasy so absurd and surreal that it is almost poetic

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2011)

Welcome to Zack Snyder's reality: A world of Samurai's, Steampunk Wars, Medieval Dragons, and Distant Planet's all set inside of a brothel inside of an asylum. Welcome, also, to one of the most controversial and hated films that has come out so far in good old 2011. Sucker Punch is an oddity, for it has accomplished everything Zack Snyder had intended from the movie... It's making people argue. Here we stand now, with the users facing off against the critics in a film that simply cannot be understood.
So... Reviewing this film is difficult because it's hard to get a grasp on everything that is going on in this visual magnum opus. One minute, we are in a twisted brothel... Seconds later, we are flying through the air with a dragon on our trail threatening to bring us down. Most are quick to dismiss this as stupid and also make a point of saying that the girls are never in any danger when they enter these worlds. Quite the opposite. The scenes aren't about whether or not the girls (called Baby Doll (Emily Browning), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), and Amber (Jamie Chung)) can survive against a dragon, they are there to show, through Baby Doll's eyes, how difficult the things she must overcome in the brothel are. That, and they are just really cool.
Let's start from the beginning. Sucker Punch begins with a captivating music video opening showing us the death of Baby Doll's mother, the drunken rage of her stepfather when he finds out the daughter's get everything from her will, his failure at raping Baby Doll and then attacking Baby Doll's younger sister, and Baby Doll's attempt to kill him, accidentally killing her sister, and being locked up in an asylum to be lobotomized. Ouch. The music (being Emily Browning's remix of Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)) is entrancing and deliciously macabre. The visuals are top notch and impressive. The set-up makes for one of the greatest openings in a movie to date. Flawless.
Before she is lobotomized, Baby Doll escapes into a fantasy to cope with everything that had just happened to her. Baby Doll seems to share the same fantasy as Zack Snyder as she envisions herself in a brothel where she is trapped and must find a way out. During one of the sessions in the brothel, Baby Doll is told to practice dancing erotically. When she begins to dance, she suddenly escapes into a feudal Japanese setting and meets with a wise man who informs her that she needs to find five items (a map, a knife, a key, fire, and a mystery) if she wishes to escape. After fighting three samurai's, she returns to the brothel fantasy and explains her plans to the other girls who then plot their escape.
Then begins the point where the audience finds out if they love or hate this film. Baby Doll dances in front of the people they need to rob (her dancing apparently putting them into a massive trance) and she escapes into the third fantasy to help her cope with the difficulty of obtaining these items. It's really quite entrancing. The same way the people in the movie are entranced by Baby Doll, we become entranced with the amazing visuals.
Sucker Punch has grabbed us at this point, and it is obvious that there are people out there who don't like being grabbed and forced into these trances. The problem comes with the fact that we aren't listening to Zack Snyder. He tells us to let go and to immerse ourselves, yet many of us refuse citing him and his work as idiotic. And it is this that makes Sucker Punch great. It produces from us a struggle from the likes of which few other movies could pull off with such finesse. We are entranced in it's world, whether we like to believe it or not... And all we have to do to enjoy it is to just let go, and allow your mind to escape into it's reality.