Sucker Punch ***

It’s too easy to be blasé about visual maestro Zack Snyder’s new film Sucker Punch, and call it gaming-action porn with scantily-clad women – the opposite of the half-naked 300 men. Just as its Japanese manga influences revel in dubious paedophilia-like images of prepubescent schoolgirls kicking ass, this film could easily be dismissed as a pervert’s ‘wet dream’. That’s on one extreme.

The other side is an intriguing feminist angle that sees an empowering action film, starring an all-female lead cast that just happens to look good and dress sexily, but delivers the goods when the going gets tough – the Bond girls have been getting away with it for years. This band of no-nonsense ladies know what they want and use their charms to get hold of the five keys to freedom, egged on by their rather odd, fantasy-world mentor, a wrinkly guide played by Scott Glenn with an arsenal full of ‘wise’ one-liners that actually mean nothing. Is Snyder mocking such genre films here? It also boils down to the age-old debate about anything of a ‘gentleman’s adult entertainment nature’, and purely depends on your perspective when watching the seduction scenes that are fairly tame.

The story follows Babydoll, a grieving daughter who loses her mother, accidentally shoots dead her younger sister, and gets incarcerated in an insane asylum by her evil step-father – who has sexual desires about both of his step-daughters. Right there, the controversy is triggered, but you do understand where Babydoll’s coming from. After that, we get shuttled around a series of fantasy realities that help her cope with ‘life on the inside’, from a brothel environment – hence the excuse for the working girl outfits and a little bit of hip swaying, and a gamer’s paradise full of Japanese warriors, fire-breathing dragons, ghostly WW1 soldiers and I, Robot androids. All this is to avoid the day that the ‘High Roller’ (played by Mad Men’s Jon Hamm) comes to town, ready for Babydoll and carrying out her lobotomy/taking her virginity (as the brothel side implies).

If you’re looking for a cohesive plot, this is not your film. Although packed with Snyder’s trademark, other-worldly wonderment and graphic detail that never fails to amaze, including beautifully-shot slow-mo shots, the plot feels like jumping from level to level of a video game. The unpleasant, vaguely misogynistic undertones make you question the 12A rating, too, in addition to some of the violence against the women characters. But the kick-ass female cast packs a defiant punch in the right direction, giving it their all and proving their worth, even though some of their characters’ back-stories required to have an ounce of empathy with their situation are sorely missed. Emily Browning (Babydoll) will be certain to gain the most from this project, suddenly appearing on the studios’ radar for her angelic beauty. The likes of Abbie Cornish, Jamie Chung and Jena Malone are just good-looking distractions with weapons. What is amusing is watching Vanessa Hudgens in fishnets, throwing off her High School Musical/Disney chains once and for all in a part that seems underdeveloped while playing to a lot of men’s fantasies of her Gabriella school days. There’s that manga influence surfacing again…

The hypnotic and grungy soundtrack sets the Snyder graphics off perfectly, although some Pixies fans might take issue with the alternative-sounding version of Where Is My Mind – this one did, a clichéd choice for depicting a loony bin scenario, or fairly apt, considering the ‘adventure’ you’re about to embark on with Babydoll in her series of realities. We just can’t tell if Snyder is being too simplistic or inadvertently clever, but some might question his sanity after this.

On the whole, Sucker Punch is superficial and erotic visual stimulation, much like the kind of experience some might have when they immerse themselves in a video game to do battle with the enemy. Think ‘plot lobotomy’, and you’re on the right track. The ending will not help matters, either. Snyder is an acquired taste, and this is more 300 than Watchmen, so art, action and angst are on the menu, which is all Snyder seems to serve.

3/5 stars

By @FilmGazer