Fun, but has a lot of flaws

Rating: 5/10 (5 September 2011)

This was a movie I had wanted to see for a long time. Sadly, I never got the chance to see it in theaters. Then I started hearing some of the reviews, and they quickly lowered my expectations. Now that I've seen it, and can honestly say that this movie is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I'll tell you why.
Let's start with the positives. It perfectly delivers what it promises to the target demographic. Hot girls fighting monsters in another world. The action scenes are pretty fun for the most part, though they can get boring at times. The special effects are hit and miss for me. Sometimes, they're absolutely stunning, while other times it looks like a video game. And that's what this movie is. A video game---played by an extremely skilled gamer, at that. My main gripe is that the characters come off as invincible, and it doesn't change until the very end when some of them die---not giving any names here.
The characters, for the most part, did what they needed to do. I would've liked to see them develop a little more and get a little back story. Two characters get a little bit, the main character gets a lot at the beginning, and the other two are left hanging. Speaking of the main character, they just kinda glossed over her back story in the beginning so I had a hard time emphasizing with her. The other two girls that got a little bit of back story and some mediocre chemistry here and there were the ones that I really cared about. The other two were just there---and just so you know, I hated Vanessa Hudgens in this movie, but then again, I don't like her in real life so I guess I'm being unfair. The acting was good for the most part. Nothing award winning, but decent for the genre.
I mostly had an issue with the story. It's nothing to complicated: some girls in a mental institution trying to break free by obtaining certain items. However, they throw in these dream sequences that were full of Zack Snyder action scenes, cgi, and slow motion. I was rather confused by this. They're just trying to get items, yet for some reason, whenever the main character dances, she goes into another world where they get the items as a group; and fight different creatures as they go along. This world was never established as part of the story, it just appears. Sure, they're fun to watch, but are mostly pointless and make no sense.
Overall, Sucker Punch was a hit or miss film for me. It's now a guilty pleasure of mine.
I'd give it a C or C-