Almost felt suckered... would you?

Rating: 5/10 (10 April 2011)

There were lots of punches. There was a sucker (lollipop). I wasn't sucker punched by surprise but I almost felt suckered for paying full price at the theatre. Let's start by saying that I loved all of Zack Snyder's previous films but this one left me perplexed. The story has 3 layers of "reality": 1) Our heroine is placed unjustly in a mental institution 2) She's stuck in a cabaret club/whorehouse 3) She's a super-powered fighter in a wild mix of settings involving giant samurais, steam-powered Nazi zombies, dragons and robots amongst others. Yes, it's a bit like an unholy mash-up of different films: Inception/Brazil/One Flew Over the Cuckoo' Nest/Moulin Rouge/Kill Bill in certain ways but less complex and particularly less emotionally involving. Our main heroine flees her unbearable situation through imagination, a theme I certainly love in movies, but I certainly wish the "visions" had been less superficial.
Weirdly, I found the first "reality" (asylum) the most gripping (especially the intro) but it's the one where we spend the least time. For me, it seemed that the deeper and more spectacular the setting was, the least I was involved. Those settings in the third layer were mostly action-oriented, extremely simplistic (like missions in a bad video game) yet visually spectacular. They were like a crazy mix of pulp/genre archetypes that are not usually combined. To be honest, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. Those action scenes/special effects were expertly done, but somehow left me cold and uninvolved the longer they ran. It's as if I didn't care. They felt "hollow".
This brings me to perhaps the biggest problem of the film. The characters are not developed or characterized enough making vicarious identification difficult if not impossible. The sense of danger or the losses were not really felt, at least for me. I liked Rocket well enough (probably because of the actress' performance) but 2 of the female characters (Blondie and Amber) were cardboard-thin and the others weren't that great. At first glance, the story itself seems complex but is in fact rather simple (not bad in itself). It's just not particularly well told. I saw the "sucker punches" coming a mile away, either that or I didn't really care one way or the other.
The main villain lacked a certain something to make him truly special or threatening, which is a shame because this movie begged for a villain we could truly love to hate. The sensei, who could have been played by David Carradine, was the only likable man in this pic but his involvement was limited mostly to story exposition. I didn't care much for the washed-out color schemes in the different layers but it's a defensible stylistic choice. The cinematography itself is quite stylish as usual for Zack Snyder. You certainly recognize the director's signature touches although he overindulges in some of his favorites moves (witness: when the girls land on the ground).
For 2 different recurring elements, he intentionally hides what's happening (the dance and later the face) and I found that rather clever and mysterious in a good way. The soundtrack consists mostly of known pop/alternative songs, either cover or original, and they fit tremendously well giving a real "punch" to the scenes. However, a little more than halfway through, the choices seemed less inspired, not bad per say but not great as before.
Should you watch Sucker Punch? Probably not at full price in the theatre but just for the amazing visuals later on, yes. Especially if you're a fan of the director's previous works. The story and characters will likely disappoint though.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10 (average-good)