Rating of
2.5/4
Don't Think, Just Feel
Chris Kavan - wrote on 03/27/11
I knew what to expect going into this film, and it delivered exactly what I wanted. Zach Snyder has once again delivered, though this is more of a visual punch then a well-crafted story.
It's obvious from the first time I saw a trailer that Sucker Punch was targeting a male audience - I mean, you have literally a live-action video game on screen featuring young women sporting fishenets, tight clothes, schoolgirl outfits and working the whole gothic Lolita vibe - plus, they kick ass doing it. If you can go beyond the surface (yes, I know it's hard, but you can do it!) this is actually a lot more about female empowerment even if it has all the trappings of a male fantasy.
Essentially it's the story about a girl sent to an asylum after her mother dies and her step father, angry that her inheritance went to the daughters instead of him, decides that isn't acceptable. So in an act of lust and rage, he goes after the daughters, the youngest one winds up dead, the elder shipped off the nuthouse. And things get interesting. Because he pays off the self-proclaimed leader of the place to put her on a fast-track to lobotomy-ville - five days to be exact.
In order to cope with this bit of bad news, our heroine, now code-named Baby Doll, creates a duel-layered fantasy world. On one end, this asylum has become a ballet school/bordello where the "orphans" are made to dance. On the second level, Baby Doll and a few select girls are thrown into various settings: a WWII campaign, a medieval castle siege a futuristic train guarded by robots - and must battle to collect the four items needed to escape: a map, fire, a knife and a key. Plus, one mystery item that ties everything together.
This is where things are complicated - I wasn't sure if the actual asylum was a front for a sex operation or not. I have no idea what Baby Doll's dancing is supposed to represent, although I think the use and choice of music fits the film well as a kind of twisted take on Alice in Wonderland - even using Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit as one of the themes. I know they wanted to mix this whole fantasy/reality thing - but throwing in a bit more of the reality would have been helpful.
Still, the visuals were stunning. Each fantasy world - from giant samurai to a fire-breathing dragon to steam-powered undead Nazis, well, it takes a lot of imagination to come up with something like that. Plus once the action started, it was pretty much non-stop. I see how they stuck to the PG-13 ratings, as steam and sparks replaced blood for the most part. And even though the costumes were outlandish, I don't think they were meant for titillation. I don't look at this from the perspective of the director, but rather that all of this is coming from the mind of Baby Doll, and if that's how she views herself, and her fellow escapees, who am I to argue?
This is pretty much just like a video game - which, unfortunately, also means that one important aspect is also like a video game: the dialogue. While I can't say I can fault the choice of casting, I can say I can fault the writing. You have the wise man spouting the most inane things, and the girls already look tough, you don't need them to say how badass things are. Plus, the one thing Snyder likes to overuse it the slo-mo - from the opening, to the battles, you're going to be enjoying a lot of slowed action. I will say, that I wasn't expecting the end, and it was both a surprise and a kind of a letdown.
Going into this film, I knew I wasn't going to be seeing an award-winning production. Yet for all the confusion and muddled points it was a lot of fun. It might not have quite delivered the knockout I wanted, but I still think it's worth watching.
