Sucker Punch is about a girl named Baby Doll (Emily Browning) who is sent to an insane asylum by her evil and abusive stepfather after events that take place soon after her mother's death. Once there she creates an imaginary version of the prison she is in where her fellow patients are actually performers and sex slaves. She meets a few of the other girls, a older sister who is the star of the show named Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), her younger and more impulsive sister Rocket (Jena Malone), and two more girls Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung). She comes up with a plan to escape, and with the help of these girls executes her plan. Instead of seeing the girls collect the items they need we are transported to another imaginary world where Baby Doll imagines a fantastical world where she must fight to escape.
Sucker Punch tells a very Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz like story. Unfortunately is fails to be as good as either story.
The beginning starts out really promising, with a intro that shows Baby Doll's mother dying, and the events that cause her stepfather to send her to the asylum. But somewhere in the first act the story goes from something that could be great to something silly and fun. I liked the use of the first song in the film, a cover of The Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" which I enjoyed. But some of the rest of the music felt out of place, and just distracted me from what was going on with the story.
Throughout the film I had to keep reminding myself this is taking place in this girl's mind in order to just sit there and enjoy it, which a good movie should be so immersive even if it is to fantastic to believe that you're not constantly reminding yourself that you're in an imaginary world. This movie tried to cover so many bases and appeal to every young male that is just felt unconnected. Also how would a 20 something year old girl like the character of Baby Doll have some a vivid imagination? Robots to Nazi steampunk zombies? We don't really establish enough of the real world. Or much about her character, nor do we really know why she wouldn't just tell someone what's going on.
That being said the film is very pretty, I think if it was done slightly differently and just better thought out it could have been a really awesome film. The action scenes were great, and entertaining. Although you didn't really feel a lot of threat when you where in them, I never once was worried for any of the girl's safety in the battles. If you like guns, revealing costumes, and can watch a film without thinking too much about it you'll like this film. The costumes were great, for the most part. The cast was mostly good, although some were underused or just misused. It felt very much like a video game movie, however video games can get away with things a film cannot. If you like your films to have a well put together that story makes complete sense and has much needed explanations maybe you should skip this one. Visually it's a well made and very imaginative film, but the story left me disappointed I would recommend this film as a rental, I wouldn't tell my friends to go see it in theaters. However I did enjoy the film, but I feel bad about it. But there are some people who are going to love this movie, but that doesn't mean they should.
