'SUCKER PUNCH' is a great punch to the senses, nothing more!

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2011)

'SUCKER PUNCH': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
Zack Snyder (the director of 'WATCHMEN', '300', the 2004 'DAWN OF THE DEAD' remake and last year's 'LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA'HOOLE') brings us another visually vibrant action packed fantasy thrill ride. This one he co-wrote with Steve Shibuya and it's his first film not based on other material. While the film is as visually satisfying and enthralling as any of his previous works it lacks the story and character development that made those other films truly great. The film features a gorgeous ensemble cast of tough twenty something girls as the action heroine leads (including Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung) and delivers everything else a teen boy could possibly want to see on screen (as well as many older men) despite it's lack of emotional involvement. In this area it's quite stunning and impressive though.
Browning stars as Baby Doll, a twenty year old young woman who's institutionalized in a 1950's insane asylum by her stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) after trying to stop him from molesting her sister. The stepfather bribes the main orderly in charge, Blue (Oscar Isaac), into arranging an illegal lobotomy for the girl. With just five days until this impending doom Baby Doll befriends four other girls and devises a plan of escape. In order to help her process this nightmarish situation she's found herself in she creates two alternate realities. In the first fantasy she's a new dancer at a brothel owned by the mob and is set to lose her virginity to an important client in five days. She then escapes into another fantasy world in which she's a Japanese school girl warrior and must battle giant Tengu samurais, orcs, robots and dragons in order to retrieve five items which will lead to her freedom. In this world she's guided by a wise old man (Scott Glenn).
The movie is titled 'Angel Wars' in Japan and has been described as "'Alice In Wonderland' with machine guns." I like the sound of that but I think it's giving the film just a little too much credit. I admire the overall story and mood of the film and what it attempts to do but I think it could have been greatly improved by a tighter rewrite. The directing is once again topnotch and continues to prove that Snyder is one of the best fantasy / action directors working in film today. Like George Lucas, James Cameron, Bryan Singer and other comparable directors his eye for creative visuals and thrilling action is much more impressive than his emotional depth and character development. Here, working with material all his own for the first time, we see that's definitely the case. We know little about any of the characters in the story really and the fantasy scenes are so emotionally detached from the rest of the film, due to our understanding that none of it is in fact real, that they lose some of their thrill and awe as well. Still the movie is extremely entertaining and so full of enjoyable eye candy that it's hard to complain about any of the film's flaws too much really. It delivers what fan boys want and is an incredibly fun time at the movies despite it's short comings. It could have been better though.
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