What's the point?

Rating: 4/10 (1 September 2011)

Sucker Punch takes place all within the mind of a woman sent to a mental ward. In fact, the sequences in the film are a fantasy within a fantasy in the mind of Emily Browning, called Babydoll in the movie. It's like Inception, only sucky. Joining her within her fantasy world are Abbie Cornish (Sweat Pea), Jena Malone (Rocket), Vanessa Hudgens (Blondie â€“ a weird choice given that she's nowhere near blonde), and Jamie Chung (Amber). The second layer fantasies are the more interesting ones, with the girls fighting giant evil samurai, steampunk Nazi soldiers, slaying a dragon, and much more. Unfortunately, despite all of the visual goodies (and the film is shot beautifully with some really cool effects), the film just lacks any sort of coherency or sense for its plot.
I think the title of the movie refers to how the audience feels after wasting nearly 2 hours of their lives watching this movie, they got sucker punched. An alternative title would be Zack Snyder's Ultimate Fanservice Extravaganza. Dressing up his female stars in schoolgirl outfits right out of Sailor Moon, and having them fight in all sorts of different fantasy settings, feels like something out of a manga universe. He tries to make a film for the fanboys to drool over, but the only drool that emerged from my mouth was when I nearly fell asleep. I usually like Snyder's films also, both 300 and Watchmen, but this one just bothered me for reasons I can't quite pin down. Probably because I was just laughing throughout the film at the absurdity and pointlessness of everything taking place on screen. Don't waste your time on this one.