Review: Sucker Punch

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Sucker Punch

If you're not familiar with The Lady, or the Tiger? by Frank R. Stockton, take a minute to read that link and come back. Sucker Punch is Zack Snyder's answer to that question after he OD'd on 'shrooms and spent a night watching Moulin Rouge, Charlie's Angels and Inception, then fell asleep to Heavy Metal. The result is a mishmash of great ideas that doesn't know where it's going. With just a little more follow-through, it could have been a hit instead of the critical flop it will ultimately be remembered as.

Emily Browning, best known for her role in Lemony Snicket, plays Baby Doll, a girl attacked by her greedy stepfather after the death of her mother in hopes of securing her fortune. Instead of fleeing, she defends herself and her sister from the evil man, but a stray bullet kills the sister and the stepfather puts Baby Doll away, paying a very nasty orderly at the hospital to make sure she is lobotomized and can never bother him again.

Just as the doctor is about to perform the procedure, she yells "Stop!" and the scene shifts to an alternate-universe version of the hospital where the patients are instead burlesque dancers, and the orderly is the gangster-owner of the club where they are all forced to live and perform.

Now, from this point, we're left wondering, is this the "real" story, and the mental institute just a sick fantasy cooked up for paying clients? Or are we in some kind of schizoid embolism a la Total Recall?  To confuse the issue only further, all the real action in Sucker Punch only happens in Baby Doll's mind when she dances. Her dance is so sensual, so captivating, that it freezes men in their tracks and makes her a hero to the other girls, though we never ever get to see her perform. Instead, we're transported to a third level of the dream where Baby Doll is a superhero fighting undead steampunk soldiers, giant robot samurai and angry mother dragons to the beat of reworked hits such as The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams." These scenes are truly epic, and the movie is worth watching just for (and only for) them, much like Knowing was worth watching if only for the disaster shots. The action and the music are like the fresh tasty hot dog inside a rotten moldy bun.

Maybe it's because of all the action they're selling in the Sucker Punch trailer that the rest of the film is disappointing. Maybe it's because all the women are victims and all the men are as disgusting as could be imagined, with no shades of gray on either side. When we enter the burlesque world, we know as little about the Baby Doll character as we do in the "real" world: nothing. She's a blank slate, in both stories an orphan who is falling victim to a very evil man. As an audience, we are supposed to want her to escape, but there is really nothing for her to escape to, nowhere to go if she gains freedom.  As an attempt at female empowerment, Sucker Punch fails miserably.  That is, unless we were to measure success the way Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams once joked, that a girl should relax and enjoy it.  

Bright spots include Carla Gugino and Scott Glenn, who both bring life to their quirky parts. Jon Hamm is woefully underused in a role with no more than three or four lines.  Typical of Snyder, the visuals in even the darkest scenes are a knockout, and the reworked rock tracks from the film will be downloading to my iTunes shortly, but I recommend Sucker Punch only if you're desperately curious, a die-hard Zack Snyder fan, or someone who really enjoys pain.