300 + The Matrix = emptiness

Rating: 5/10 (13 May 2011)

One would imagine that a movie that combines the fantastic fight scenes of 300 with reality puzzles would make for an entertaining movie. It doesn't.
The lovely Emily Browning, who doesn't look as lovely as a bleached blonde, plays a girl whose rich mother has died and left her wealth to her two daughters. The stepfather kills the younger girl and frames the older one. Not only that, but he gets her interned in an asylum and pays off the guy in charge to perform a lobotomy on her. Just as the needle is about to hit her eye, we enter into the second level of reality. Here the ill girls are strippers and prostitutes. Emily's Baby Doll bonds with the other girls. Every time she dances she enters a third level of reality. Here she is guided by a guru and given hints on how to escape. They have to collect some items from level 2 in order to get out. While she dances she hypnotizes the audience while the other girls steal the objects needed. The missions in level 3 take the shape of video game like battles. As with video games, the enemies are the Germans, monsters, and alien robots. These battle scenes are pretty good but progressively get worse. The first one is the most amazing, looking like a battle from Call of Duty II. The second one in the middle ages is OK. The third one against robots that look like they came from I-Robot is poor.
Eventually it all has to unravel through the 3 levels of reality. Everything that happens is really an excuse to show us battle scenes. The whole stripper stuff is silly in a PG-13 movie and looks more like some cheesy burlesque music video- and we actually get one of those as the end credits roll.
There is a message in this movie, not unlike the one from The Matrix: free yourself and you are responsible for your destiny. A noble message no doubt. However, the movie doesn't play out the message. The ending us unhappy. It takes courage for filmmakers to go with an unhappy ending. But here it doesn't work with the positive message the movie tries to impart. How can you free yourself when you're lobotomized (the main actress does get lobotomized in the end)? What is the purpose of taking charge of your life if someone else benefits from your actions and not you (another character and not the main one escapes from the institution).
There is an idea here, there is the budget, and skill of the crew and cast, in particular Browning, Cornish, Gugino. But if the aim is ultimately to film somewhat cool fight scenes your movie is destined to fail as does this one.