Sucker Punch Sucks

Sucker punch, what happened to you? You had all the ingredients to be pretty bad-ass, instead you really fizzled out into a lame, offensive, and above all very boring flick. I am disappointed in you. Mainly I just wanted to sucker-punch this movie in the face. SPOILER ALERT:


The movie is centered around Babydoll, an orphaned girl (or supposedly, we are told, a twenty year old woman, going on twelve) who is forced into an insane asylum where she is repeatedly raped by the orderlies in a dirty bathroom, and is scheduled to be lobotomized in a few days. 


To escape this grim reality, Babydoll escapes to a fantasy world...of sexual slavery in a PG rated brothel, where the girls are forced to dance for the clientele at night, and by day attend some kind of strange ballet school for wayward girls. It turns out Babydoll has a hypnotic, entrancing dance which sends her into a kind of trance and yet ANOTHER fantasy of the sci-fi, steam-punk, monster/robot fighting variety. 


Sadly even in this world, there is no entertainment to be found for the viewer, with the clumsy stunt fighting, banal dialogue and lack of audience investment in any character whatsoever. The entire movie seems to be a vehicle for skimpy insane asylum costumes and even skimpier brothel/ professional bad-ass attire. I can appreciate the artistic style and beauty of Snyder's cinematography, but in this case, it just wasn't enough to pull through. 


Sucker Punch really dropped the ball in almost every conceivable area: dialogue, character development, stunts, plot, motivation...the list goes on! For me, the hardest part to stomach was the pseudo-feminist message of "you have all the weapons you need, now fight!" 


One can only assume that the film-makers intended for there to be some sort of empowering going on here...even though these "weapons" are their bodies and sex appeal, and every single attempt the women make to alter their surroundings or defend themselves are met with violence and death.  The only place these chicks kick ass is in their dreams, and even in those dreams they are taking orders from an older male commander. 


Sadly, big guns and swords alone do not empowered women make. But don't worry ladies, you can always escape into your fantasy world and wait for things to get better while you are crying and giving lap dances.