Mindless plot but stunning visuals

Rating: Null/10 (6 April 2011)

Director Zack Snyder is noted for putting his visuals way ahead of any narrative, but I enjoyed both "300" and "Watchmen". Here though, where he is both writer and director, the visuals totally dominate - yet what visuals. From the very opening to the very closing (the credits themselves are stylish), "Sucker Punch" is visually stunning and I saw the film on the biggest screen in Britain (the BFI IMAX in central London). The effects are fabulous and the soundtrack thumping.
In a sense, all art is derivative (after 3,000 years of civilisation, how could it be otherwise?), but this movie is utterly, utterly derivative. Set in a mental institution with one world within another, involving a group of young, attractive women being sent on various missions by an older man, and with four set-piece battles on various mythical locations, this is "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" via "Inception" and "Charlie's Angels" for the pop video/computer gamer generation.
The central character - and the only one with any real back-story - is Babydoll (5' 2" Emily Browning) who is a cross between The Bride in "Kill Bill" and Trinity in "The Matrix". Her four fellow inmates and combatants are sisters Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish - who looks like a young Nicole Kidman) and Rocket (Jena Malone - who looks like a young Meg Ryan) plus Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung). All of them have huge false eyelashes and incredible resource, both physical and hardware. If they are the angels, then the Charlie figure is grizzled Scott Glenn, the only man who is less than revolting. As for the other 'characters', you've got samurai, dragons, cyborgs, robots, the lot - all waiting to be blasted to bits in a fast-moving video world.
If there had been a half-decent script with some sort of plot, this would have been quite a movie. As it is, you need to give yourself a virtual lobotomy and just enjoy the ride.