Sucker Punch

Wow. What a mess.

Sucker Punch, the newest film from 300 and Watchmen director Zack Snyder, tells the story of a character named Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who is sent to a mental asylum to be lobotomized by her lecherous and murderous stepfather. Along with four other women—Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone) and Amber (Jamie Chung)—Baby Doll tries to escape. The on-screen events play out in two different alternate-realities: a burlesque world in which the girls are prisoners and another where the girls participate in sci-fi battles. Unfortunately for Snyder, this is no Inception.

The biggest problem with the film is the screenplay. There’s a good story buried in here, but Snyder fails to realize it. The theme of living inside your head is a captivating one, and the concept that what happens in your imagination can affect the real world is even more intriguing. But Snyder has little gift for building suspense or developing characters, and he fills the solid framework with predictable plot twists and heavy-handed scenes of abuse.

Ironically, the action and fantasy scenes—which have become Snyder’s calling card—work against him here. The inclusion of expensive and impressive fantasy elements only makes the story in the real world seem more boring. It’s hard to make a 20-minute battle sequence in space a metaphor for walking three feet and stealing a knife from someone’s pocket. Inevitably, the audience is going to want to stay in that fantasy world, where at least something happens.

The only justification for Snyder to maintain the burlesque story-line—which is awful—is that he said he was trying to make a statement about female empowerment. The violence toward the girls, however, fails to connect any of the desired strength or defiance to the characters’ actions. Unlike Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Snyder’s use of excess does little to confront these questions of gender inequity.