So Sucker Punch has gotten some pretty bad reviews, eh? I vowed to go in to the screening with an open mind. In its defence, it’s got an attractive (and in places, talented) cast, fire-breathing dragons, robot samurai and Nazi zombies – how bad could it be? Pretty damn awful, as it turns out.
Emily Browning plays “Baby Doll” a young woman (supposedly 20, but looking about 15) who, following some contrivances that involve a wicked stepfather, finds her self in a mental institution for the insane(ly hot). It’s within these walls that she’s forced into prostitution and coerced into dancing for the asylum/brothel’s clients and staff. While dancing (bear with me) she closes her eyes and escapes into a fantasy world that initially gives her clues as to how to escape the asylum, and then form metaphorical parallels for her friends’ actual schemes.
So, for example, while her friend Rocket (Abbie Cornish) is stealing a map in the real world, Baby Doll is fantasising that she and her friends are fighting zombie Nazis (I’m not making this up), for their map. So it continues, in an episodic, videogame-style fashion until its finale.
Why doesn’t the film work? Well, for starters, because Baby Doll’s fantasies are just that, there’s exactly zero sense of danger or peril in these lengthy, opulent scenes. Also, as other critics have pointed out, why would she be daydreaming about giant samurai warriors and dragons? Why not imagine she’s sunbathing in a meadow or shopping with her friends? The dialogue (in a script co-written by its director) is awful, but, considering that the entire female cast is decked out like extras in a Prince video, it would be hard to take the actresses seriously no matter how well it was written. The tone is ugly and misogynistic – did we really need three attempted rapes in a fantasy adventure? – and hypocritical to boot: the film's grotesque villains leer at the young female cast, but the filmmakers themselves were only delighted to deck out these talented actresses in increasingly tiny costumes.
What’s more (SPOILER ALERT in this paragraph) – most of the girls in the film would be better off had they never met their hero, Baby Doll! If I’d made any emotional investment in these characters, I’d be seriously pissed off!
It’s a shame that Sucker Punch a- sucked and b- flopped. Warner Brothers took an $80million punt on an eccentric action movie that was neither a sequel, a remake nor based on a comic. They were rewarded with a laughing-stock of a film that will likely make a loss. The failure of this film, on every level, will be used as a reason for studios to think twice before taking a risk.
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