Movie Review: Sucker Punch

In the latest movie from one of my favorite directors, Zack Snyder, we meet twenty year old, Baby Doll, who has just been admitted into a mental institution by her deranged step father. The beginning of the movie is all that's straight-forward though- soon after Baby Doll is admitted, the audience experiences two other worlds that Baby Doll is living in. The first 'world' being a sort of fantastical version of the mental facility in which the girls are being used to work as dancers at a night club (and it alludes to much more than just dancing). The second 'world' is that which Baby Doll enters while she's dancing. (So now we have a world within a world) This second world changes to fit the 'mission' that Baby Doll is facing in the first world. For example, she needs to get a map of the facility to be able to escape, so Baby Doll begins to dance and is transported to the second world where she fights in the literal trenches of a war to secure a map. While the concept is very interesting, the ending may leave you feeling empty. SPOILER ALERT! In the end, Baby Doll realizes that this journey has never been hers- it is in fact, a mission to get Sweet Pea (another of the girls) out of the asylum. And though this mission is a success (Sweet Pea escapes), and Baby Doll embraces her fate and accepts this place of 'no fear, no pain, etc...', in the end our main character gets lobotomized! Here are my points:

• Visuals, sound, costuming, set design, affects were all masterful! I feel that they really went out of their way to create very original designs. What stuck out in my mind was the fact that each of the adversaries that the girls faced 'bled' something different. None of them bled blood, which helped to reinforce the fact that this is a fantasy world and that the adversaries were more 'ideas' or 'forces' than they were actual physical beings.
• Dialogue and acting were believable and informative enough to understand, however- three different worlds.... that's a little hard to follow and has you questioning what's real or if any of it is. The girls were believable in each of the different worlds- though some more than others- and did a fantastic job with combat and fight scenes.
• As far as the script, I'll give the writers and director points for producing a product that does not follow formula. That being said, I think they lose points for having the main character get lobotomized in the end. People naturally want to see happy endings, and that does get a bit old, but when the ending is not good, why watch it? There should be a reason why the protagonist fails- in this case I think the point was to see Sweet Pea (and Baby Doll's own acceptance of her fate) as the success. This might have been the case if we had an emotional attachment to Sweet Pea; it is her resolve to stay in the institute in the face of her sister, Rocket's, determination to get out at all costs, that makes her the least likable character in the group!

My opinion:

This film is Brave.

The film wasn't made just to fill someone's pocketbook. It tried very hard to make a statement and affect it's audience. But, by going against the formula, the film alienated an audience that was ready to see it's protagonist succeed in however many worlds she wanted to create for herself. 

Sucker Punch

Brave **