A Visually Vivid but Underwhelming Fetish Film

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2011)

Human imagination is a boundless and valuable thing. "Sucker Punch" manages to prove that fact while it fumbles with a complicated storyline. It's a film where beauty prevails but material is needed. To understand "Sucker Punch", be aware of the three forms of narrative: one takes place in reality, another is a fantasized stage of that reality, and the other is a complete dream world.
Emily Browning stars as Baby Doll, a 20-year-old girl who is committed to a mental asylum and sentenced to be lobotomized in five days. This is a reality she copes with by creating her own world where the institution becomes a brothel run by chief orderly and sleaze bucket Blue Jones (played by Oscar Isaac). Baby Doll becomes acquainted with her fellow peers and they urge her to take special dance lessons from their teacher (played by Carla Gugino). As she dances, Baby Doll envisions a parallel dream world where physical laws and other rules are naught. With the help of her friends and newfound powers, she plans to escape the facility.
The dream world settings are visually spellbinding in color and design. The exhilarating hues light up the screen to effectively awe the audience and it a grand sight to behold. Every time Baby Doll enters this mystical realm, there are different landscapes with new enemies. It's like watching a live-action kill-them-all video game with orcs, dragons, killer droids, undead German soldiers from WWI, and giant samurai. To fight their opponents, the girls use everything from katana swords to submachine guns. There is a lot of anachronism like the machine guns handled in the WWI trenches but remember, we are beyond reality at this point. The brawls are superbly choreographed so that major blows are stressed while the less-effective hits are kept at a fast pace.
As far as directing goes, "Sucker Punch" is Zack Snyder's most mediocre undertaking. He enacts his trademark slow-motion action sequences with proficiency and it's highly commendable. Snyder also tries out new techniques such as the split focus shot (a pet peeve of mine) which is employed in a way I have never seen before, not even in Brian De Palma's movies. But the good qualities of "Sucker Punch" are countered by a screenplay, among other things, doused with dialogue that is either decent or rotten. I rarely critique a film's soundtrack but in the case of "Sucker Punch", I'll make an exception with a clear purpose. If you look back at Snyder's adaptation of "Watchmen", most of the music reflects the time period the story is set in and the selections work well. Snyder mashes random music genres into his film and I feel they ruin the overall tone in the process.
The acting is generally average, neither great nor horrible, with the exception of Scott Glenn's performance which falls below the line. The five main girls try to give their roles satisfying character but in the long run, there are no special traits or attitudes established to help me understand them better. A woman with the name of Rocket (played by Jena Malone) could have a hot-headed demeanor; all I get is a small backstory and no real personality. None of the other girls live up to their nicknames and it's pretty disappointing.
"Sucker Punch" is fantastic to look at even if it lacks the sufficient pieces to build an inspiring story with vivid characters. Zack Snyder has the talent and knowledge to make a great movie and I do not think this film will haunt him. Yet it might serve as a scar left to remind him of the mistakes he needs to avoid. Now that I think of it, some people are proud of their scars and tend not to make the same blunders again.
My Rating: 5/10