Sucker Punch or Punch Sucked...you be the judge.

Rating: 4/10 (29 March 2011)

Went to see Sucker Punch the other night, and I have to say, I'm impressed. Not with the plot, mind you. The plot was nowhere to be found. I was impressed with the fact that one movie could get away with stealing from so many others. Beowulf, Hellboy, Shutter, Lord of the Rings, and Face Off among others. And although I haven't practiced martial arts in quite some time, I'm pretty sure it is nigh impossible to fight off hoards of clockwork zombies/orcs/whatever while wearing heals and a sailor suit school girl outfit regardless of what I've seen of anime or what my pervy boyfriend claims. Insert glare here.
Its biggest problem is the plot-what little could be found-doesn't really come to anything until the end. You spend most of the movie scratching your head trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Oh, and the plot holes! Ugh! Babydoll(Emily Browning)is told by the "wise man" to find five items to escape her tormentors. She and her cohorts go through great lengths and a lot of psychedelic ass kicking trying to acquire these "necessities" that any fool with sticky fingers and a little common sense could have lifted in under an hour. Better yet, why not pry yourself from your dream world long enough to tell Doc Gorski(Carla Gugino), the one person who might be on your side, "Hey, my dad paid one of your staff to forge your name on a document that will render me a vegetable for the rest of my life so he can inherit all my money. Might want to look in to that. Thanks." Of course, that would have made the movie shorter. Or would have forced the director to come up with a better story line. Can't have that. Not in an action flick.
Its one saving grace, as with most action movies, is the special effects and fight scenes. Sailor suit be damned, the girls do kick some ass. A lot of ass. Well rendered, CGI ass, but ass none the less. And I thought the Wise Man (Scott Glenn) was kind of cool with his glib pronouncements, even if most of what he said was plagiarized from other speakers.
All in all, I think Sucker Punch was an okay movie that no one will admit to secretly liking. It might even become one of those cult classics which is the definitive word for movies no one likes to admit they like, at least not until someone cool does. Hey, Rocky Horror didn't have much of a plot either. Look how that turned out.