A young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the mental facility.
Review
The age old adage of storytelling is that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Sometimes not necessary in that order, but these elements should be present for a compelling and coherent tale. Sucker Punch's problem is that it doesn't really have these components and because of this it fails to live up to its promising and visually dazzling trailers.
What we have with Sucker Punch is a collection of outlandish and ridiculous (in a good way) genre segments that have been shoe horned into a flimsy plot with the purpose of distracting you from the main narrative. This doesn't make the movie fall flat, it just makes it very frustrating to watch.
The beginning of the film is basically a silent montage, all filmed in slow-motion that doesn't let you connect or empathise with the characters plight. Two young girls losing their mother and being abused by their stepfather should be an emotional start, one that builds the audiences relationship with the main protagonist but in the end feels distant and uninviting.
After accidentally killing her sister our heroine, Baby Doll, is sent to a lunatic asylum where, to combat the horrors that goes on, regresses into a subconscious whereby the asylum becomes a bordello and she becomes a dancer. Within this world Baby Doll can also regress into a second level of consciousness whereby she is a warrior fighting for her freedom. It's this level that has Baby Doll searching for five key items that will lead to her freedom and also where the best bits of the film take place. We're treated to some over the top action and adventure that I've never seen on the screen before and is really the films only saving grace.
Visually these action set pieces are jaw dropping. Giant samurai warriors, steam powered nazi's, dragons and futuristic robots all make up this world with each scene being looked over by a guardian who outlines the main goal in each strand. Its basically like watching someone playing a computer game and progressing to a new and more dangerous level each time. Its a geeks wet dream and I have to admit to enjoying them immensely.
The trouble is that once each scene is complete, we're back to the first regression level and we have basically no continuation or engagement as we move forward to the next one. If the story flowed a little more evenly and the same care and attention had gone into these scenes we could have had a really good movie here but instead we just sit patiently waiting for the next big bang.
The films style may also alienate certain viewers. Its no secret that Zack Synder likes slow motion mixed with heavy metal music, its been a trait throughout all his previous films, but this one must be almost 50% slow motion. Seriously its used to that extreme. I don't mind it that much but even I started to think "Is this ever going to play out in real time?"
The actresses really try and bring the characters to life, but you can really only do so much when there's this much green screen around. They handle the action superbly but the bordello scenes all seem stunted, as if they were being directed by someone different to the action ones.
When the ending does come around it feels rushed and taped on and your not even sure if it is indeed the end. It loses all focus and doesn't seem to make much sense. I have learned however that there is an extended cut of the film which does explain the ending a little more and fills in some other holes but I'm not sure eighteen minutes can fill in that much.
I wanted to really like this film but in the end I was disappointed. Sucker Punch is one of those films that has incredible visuals and glimpses of story behind it but just no flow. It stutters from beginning to end trying its hardest to be the thing it wants to be but in the end just doesn't make.
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