Sucker Punch, A Review

SuckerPunch

This movie was made by the same people who created 300 and Watchmen - so that should set the stage for you. While both 300 and Watchmen had something to fall back on, history and a graphic novel, I am unaware of anything that SuckerPunch fell back on, and it showed. While visually stunning, they used special effects to their greatest, the story fell flat. In many ways, the story was rather tired. Great tragedy, leads to greater tragedy and then the story devolves for the main character further.

The casting was spot on, really, the young women that were cast were perfect, all of them assuming first delinquents, then psyche cases, then finally reluctant call girls. The story within the story within the story didn't have the cool Inception feel to it. I think the idea was to have the main character, we never learn her real name, but in the most in-depth dream, Baby Doll, loses her mother, then her sister, by her own hand, and then gets committed to an institution by her step-father. Although tragic, the formula has been done before. She ends up in there, and finds out her step-father has arranged to have a lobotomy done on her, and so the stories begin.

In her mind, she meets a man who tells her she can escape from the psyche ward, but she must find certain items to do so. When she begins to search, she floats into yet another plain of existence, where she's lost her family and has been sold to a brothel, there she delves into yet another plane where she is a warrior, possibly fighting in Nazi controlled Europe, it was unclear. As she goes through each dream/sub-dream, the group acquires the items needed to escape, but as they progress, they pay heavy prices.

Ultimately, I think the psyche ward was the only 'real' world, but I'm still not sure. The story in the sub-dreams were only slight more creative, but if anything, this was, like 300, more of a souped up video game than a movie. Overall, I'd say I was disappointed, more interested in my movie nachos than in the movie itself. While I won't say I wasn't happy to see it, if I had to do it again, I'd probably see it during the day and probably not in IMAX.