Review of Sucker Punch (2011) by Jack F — 23 Oct 2013

Style-over-substance is a common complaint in the world of cinema. How many times have you come across a film that was aesthetically pleasing in almost every way but was sorely lacking at the story level? Too many to count, I'm sure. Zack Synder's "Sucker Punch" is a bit of a unique specimen. I was going to say that it is yet another example of style-over-substance--and to a certain degree, it definitely is--but it's a bit different. This might be a film with a bit too much style AND substance. Granted, the substance that's there doesn't amount to much (hence, it is a style-over-substance movie), but there sure is a lot of it to digest. More than is necessary.

What we have here is a simple story of five young girls trying to escape a mental institution. However, apparently in an effort to add depth, Snyder and fellow screenwriter Steve Shibuya decided to throw in a fantasy element. Nearly the entire movie takes place in a fantasy world in the protagonist's head. But it doesn't stop there. Even within the fantasy world, the movie goes the "Inception" route and the girls fantasize a bit more; now we've got a fantasy-within-a-fantasy situation.

Now the obvious questions is "Why does the movie need a second fantasy world," and to be fair, it does answer it. But it just leads to a bigger question, at least in my mind. You see, the young heroine (Emily Browning, of "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "The Uninvited") has been wrongly committed to the asylum. And to escape from the pain and anguish of the place, she goes into a little fantasy world in her mind. And what is this fantasy world?

A brothel.

Yes, she imagines that she and her fellow inmates are actually dancers/prostitutes in some kind of brothel that looks like a speakeasy from the roaring '20's. Now within this fantasy world, our heroine comes up with an escape plan. But in order to execute it, she needs to obtain a few key items. And when she and her cronies (including Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish) undertake the task of retrieving the items, she goes into yet another fantasy world, in which they are all deadly warriors, adept with guns, blades, and vehicles like tanks and planes.

So the second fantasy world makes sense in that it's a way to escape the first fantasy world. But why in the holy name of God is the first fantasy world a brothel in the first place? Isn't it supposed to be like a mental retreat, a happy place, a FANTASY? The heroine creates it in her mind to get away from the nuthouse...and THIS is what she creates? Jeepers creepers, girl, this isn't "The Matrix." A brothel is barely a step up; some may even consider it a step down.

Oh, and I didn't even mention how she gets into the second fantasy world. The gateway is her dancing; whenever she starts to perform an erotic dance, the fantasy begins. Yeah..........

So as you can see, this movie is definitely a mess. But damn, what it does right, it does right very well...and that is the fantasy-within-the-fantasy sequences. Like all of Snyder's films ("300," "Watchmen," "Man of Steel"), "Sucker Punch" is visually striking throughout, but nowhere is this more apparent than these sequences. For each item the girls need to obtain, they go through a different battle arena, in places like a World War I No Man's Land zone, a medieval castle, and a futuristic bullet train. The enemies they fight include fire breathing dragons, goblin-like things that look like Orcs from "Lord of the Rings," and Nazi German soldiers (yes, the girls slay some Nazi Germans...holy frickin' awesome). These scenes look so good and the action is so well-done that I found myself looking forward to them, just to see what kind of crazy shit the filmmakers would come up with next.

You could definitely argue that this is all part of the bigger problem though. When you break it down, these sequences are really just set-pieces. Fantastic-looking set-pieces, sure, but if I'm being honest, they're superfluous when you consider the story at hand. If "Sucker Punch" were a video game (which is definitely where I think Snyder got his inspiration from), these parts would be the levels. The girls go in, they do battle, they retrieve whatever Macguffin they're going for, and then it's back to reality...or wait, back to fantasy. Whatever. But that's basically all they amount to: stages of a video game.

The performances aren't much either. Browning has previously demonstrated that she's a good actress, but she's wrong for this part. She just doesn't come across as an action heroine, and even in the real world/first fantasy world scenes, she seems a bit flat. The rest of the girls are basically interchangeable; Malone fares the best, but despite her efforts, her character really didn't have many traits to distinguish her from the others. And it needs to be said, Oscar Isaac, as a dastardly orderly/proprietor of the brothel, does not make for a good villain (on the basis of this film anyway). He looks and sounds more like a sniveling henchman than a heavy (though some of this is the character, rather than the actor).

Despite all this, the second fantasy world battle stuff is still thrilling. "Sucker Punch" is a mess from top to bottom, but should you happen to come across this film, you can tune it out until it gets to the fantasy battles. You can almost look at them as a collection of short films (or, as stated above, stages of a video game). Plot would be simple: fight through enemies, retrieve the object. What is the object? Who cares...it's a Macguffin. Watch one, then you can kill some time until the next level--er, fantasy battle sequence--begins. The simple breakdown is this: I do not recommend "Sucker Punch" the movie, but I'm okay with recommending those individual sequences.

Wait, you can probably find those on Youtube, huh? Perfect, then you don't even need the movie...which is for the best.