REVIEW: SUCKER PUNCH

My Rating:

"You will be unprepared," is the tagline for Zack Snyder's latest film, Sucker Punch. It is an apt tagline, because you truly will be unprepared for this movie. A series of WTF moments loosely strung together for about 2 hours, Sucker Punch is one of the biggest Hollywood flops to hit screens in recent memory.



This review contains SPOILERS. So if for some reason you are planning on seeing this, stop here. You have been warned.


After the death of her mother, Babydoll (Emily Browning) along with her younger sister, are left in the care of their abusive stepfather. When Babydoll's stepfather learns that his late wife left all of her money to her daughters, he becomes enraged. He gets drunk and tries to rape Babydoll. After a few scratches to the face, he decides it would be best to turn his attention to Babydoll's younger sister. In an attempt to save her younger sister, Babydoll goes to get her stepfather's gun. When she confronts her stepfather, Babydoll accidentally shoots and kills her younger sister. This should have been an emotionally wrenching and powerful prologue, but unfortunately it wasn't. The main reason was the blaring soundtrack, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These). The music sucked any seriousness out of the prologue and put up a wall between the viewer and the movie so no connection could be made.

After the death of her sister, Babydoll's stephfather admits her into an asylum for the mentally insane, and after five days, she is to have a lobotomy so that she can be silenced. Right as the lobotomy is about to be preformed, reality shifts and Babydoll is no longer in an asylum, instead she is a burlesque dancer at a brothel. Where, in five days, the 'High Roller' will come to buy Babydoll. So did I lose you yet? It is in the alternate dream reality that Babydoll meets four other dancers: Sweet Pea (Abby Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). All of the girls representing some archetypal character. Each of the girls has a specific dance they do for their clients, when Babydoll dances she learns that she has magic dance powers that hypnotize men, and also transport her into a kick-ass dream world. It is in this kick-ass dream world that Babydoll meets her spirit guide/wise man/retarded guru (Scott Glenn). He tells her that if she wants to escape the brothel she will need to find five things: a map, fire, a knife, a key and a mystery fifth thing. After Babydoll is given this tidbit of knowledge along with a sword and gun, she is instantly confronted by three giant stone-made, gun toting samurai. It was at this point in the 'story' that I had my first big WTF moment. While cool, these samurai have NOTHING to do with anything. They have no relationship to anything in Babydoll's brothel dream or her asylum 'real world'. I could have understood if they were a metaphor for something that she had to emotionally overcome, but they weren't. After defeating the three samurai, Babydoll returns from her kick-ass dream world to the brothel dream. Babydoll's fighting skills in the kick-ass dream world are an extension of, a metaphor for, her dance in the brothel, but we never get to see her dance. After learning of her magic dance powers, Babydoll teams up with the other four dancers to escape from the brothel. Their plan is to have men watch Babydoll dance while they steal a map, fire, a knife and a key. With the help of Babydoll's retarded spirit guide, the five girls battle steampunk Nazis zomies, dragons and robots in this kick-ass dream world all in an attempt to escape the brothel.

I think the one thing that this movie clearly demonstrates is that Zack Snyder is no screenwriter. Snyder tries to do the Inception-thing with dreams within dreams, but fails because there is no connection between the dreams and the people. Sure, kicking steampunk Nazis zombie ass is cool, but so what? It doesn't relate to anything in the story. Without an emotional connection between these giant set pieces and the story, the viewer has no reason to care about what they are seeing on screen. Snyder doesn't even try to give an explanation for the kick-ass dream world. The four other dancers are in Babydoll's kick-ass dreams, but it is never explained whether or not the dream is a shared experience or whether the girls in Babydoll's dreams are just her imagination. At one point later on in the movie, one of the dancers references something that happens in Babydoll's dream, which only further muddies the waters of what was actually happening. 

If I had to pick what I thought was the worst thing about this movie (besides the ending, which I spoil at the bottom), I would have to say it was the dialogue. It was downright painful at times, worse than Avatar.  The dialogue was at it's worst whenever the 'wise man' showed up. He spouted some of the stupidest platitudes I have ever heard; none of which had any contextual meaning. 'Don't write a check you can't cash with your ass!'

This movie amounts to no more than a twelve year-old boys wet dream, thinly veiled as a story about female empowerment. If you were to put The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, i-Robot, Sin City and Kill Bill in a blender and ask monkeys to put the bits together into one film, you would have Sucker Punch.

Released: March, 2011
Length: 1 hr 49 min
Directed by: Zack Synder
Written by: Zack Synder, Steve Shibuya

Cast: Emily Browning, Abby Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung

Rating: PG-13

You want to know the ending to Sucker Punch? Follow me...
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So. Yeah. All of the dancers die except for Babydoll and Sweet Pea. After collecting four of the things they need to escape, Babydoll and Sweet Pea make it out of the brothel where the gate is guarded. But wait Josh! What was the last thing they needed to find in order to escape?! The fifth and last thing, the mystery thing, is Babydoll! She distracts the guards long enough for Sweat Pea to escape. After kicking one of the guards in the balls, Babydoll gets punched in the face. As soon as she gets punched, we jump back to the asylum where Babydoll receives the lobotomy. Did you forget about that part of the 'story'? Yeah I did too. The doctor preforms the lobotomy and Babydoll turns into vegetable. It is now that we get a half-ass explanation that tries to tie the asylum and the brothel together, but it will only leave you feeling confused.   

The final scene is of Sweat Pea, presumably still in the brothel dream getting onto a bus bound for home. Guess who the bus driver is?! It's the wise man from kick-ass dream land! Oh man, what a twist!