It's a little bit different and that's no bad thing.

Rating: 6/10 (26 June 2011)

Sucker Punch is a deceptively simple film. It's deceptive in that it appears to be a clever movie. But it really isn't.
Don't get me wrong. It's nice to see a movie that isn't just a straightforward scene by scene celluloid tale. Sucker Punch manages quite well to convince you that it is deeper and more meaningful than it is whilst telling a simple story of an escape from an asylum.
The "clever" part is that where an ordinary movie would show and make drama out of the actual steps necessary to escape in reality, Sucker Punch tells these moments through the alternate reality envisaged by the main protagonist, a girl known simply as Baby Doll.
Her flights of fantasy are quite unusual, and very well done for the most part. Essentially the struggle to obtain the necessary items to effect their escape in real-life are obtained in the fantasy segments through the simple resort of slicing and dicing and running and gunning their way through various enemies.
As I mentioned, the fantasy elements are well done and realised and couple of those segments are interesting enough that I wouldn't mind a movie based entirely on their concepts.
However, not all is good in this movie. For a start, the characters are so thinly sketched that it is hard to feel any kind of empathy for them, or their plight. The fantasy segments, though executed well, only show the girls in a positive, empowered light, making it difficult to link the asylum girls plight to that of the ass-kicking, scantily clad beauties seen therein.
Additionally in one of the fantasy scenes the girls fail to complete their mission, leading to their failure to secure an item. However, later this item is seen in their hidden storage area and is used by Baby Doll as if the mission had been a success. Continuity error? Or intentional error to highlight the fantastic nature of the story? I wasn't sure.
However, I was sure the "reality" sections of the film were meant to be set in the fifties. So it seemed logical that any fantasies that sprung out of the mind of someone living in that era would be limited to the technology of that era. So whilst I can accept the steampunk-esque clockwork and steam-powered nazi zombies, I'm less inclined to believe LCD displays and a Huey helicopter. Were their 'Nam style helo's in the fifties? I'm sure there were many other anachronistic items that I didn't notice.
The worst thing to come out of this film, though, is Zack Snyder's insistence that he made the movie to "empower" women. Empower them how, exactly? By dressing them up like Japanese anime characters? By having them enact massive amounts of violence with guns and swords? Fantasy, it may be, but it sure ain't any female fantasy. This has the whiff of over-testosteroned male excess about it. As such, it's pretty easy to see its target demographic - young men.
I don't mind films like this - in fact I quite enjoy them. But I dislike those responsible for them pretending they are something better than what they actually are.
So to summarise then. Reasonably entertaining and slightly different. Characters you don't really care about. Interesting fantasy elements. Made out to be better than it actually is. Worth a watch, but nothing like as special as some would have you believe.