What a waste of Steam Powered German Clockwork Zombies!

When it came to the cinemas a friend of mine told me that Sucker Punch is the 2001 a Space Odyssey of our era. I argued with him strait away, but admitted that I had not, as yet, seen the film. Well, I just rented it and I was not disappointed. When I say that I was not disapointed I mean to say that upon seeing it my initial feelings about what I thought the film would be like were justified.

As for the movie...well.

My advice to Zack Snyder is to just remake the work of better writers and directors. Mr. Snyder directed the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which was a passable film that would have been much better if it had been called something else. He also directed 300, which was also a no brainer for him as most of the heavy lifting was done by Frank Miller. With Watchmen he did as decent a job as he could have done for something that was very hard to film...but do not tell Alan Moore I said that. I don't want Mr. Moore to murder me in my sleep. I love his work, but I also fear him.

Back to Sucker Punch. Hmmm, I have no idea what the title had to do with the story. If you dearly want to see it, then stop reading.

We meet the main character, a girl named "Baby Doll", on the night her mother dies. Her step father upon finding out straightens his tie with a greasy lecherous look as though the "Its Daughter Raping Time" sign has been lit. It shows him reading his wife's will that leaves the mother's money to her two daughters...he has a fit and decides that its daughter raping time and goes about his business. There is a melee and in the course of it, one daughter is killed and our hero, Baby Doll ends up in a sanitarium. This bit of "character development" is basically a video montage done to the tune of a passable cover of Sweet Dreams Are Made of This. Ham-handed at best.

Now to the meat of the film. Baby Doll retreats into a fantasy world where she is actually in thrall to a brothel. I am afraid that this is the best she could do as an escape from the hum drum existence of being in a mental institution and facing forcible lobotomy. So, in her brothel fantasy, she has periods of time she has another fantasy to escape the first fantasy. In this fantasy she is part of an elite fighting force of women dressed like strippers who have strippers names. Don't believe me? The fierce five are called Baby Doll, Sweet Pea, Amber, Blondy and Rocket. You have to keep up with me here because if you fall behind I cannot be held responsible if you get lost. In This fantasy, she meets an eastern master, played by Scott Glen. Why they did not actually cast an Asian for this part is beyond me, but there you have it.

Sensei Glen tells her that she has to collect five objects to escape. The theft of each object, in the Brothel fantasy and presumably in the Asylum real world is accompanied by an adventure of the stripper girl combat squad. The first is just Baby Doll fighting giant samurai with chainguns. No, Baby don't have the chain guns, the samurai do. Baby has a chrome .45 and a samurai sword. The second (or first object...a map) is a Steam/Diesel punk thing where they fight Steam powered WWI German Zombies, wearing lingerie and wielding assault rifles and sub-machine guns. Oh, and there is a Mecha involved. The third (second object...a lighter) they fight Diesel punk orcs and a dragon, with a B29. The forth (third object...a Kitchen Knife) they fly a Huey after a monorail train that is suspended in air by rocket powered platforms and they fight sci-fi chrome robots. I would go on, but you would go on but you would not believe me unless you have seen it for your self. Did I forget to mention that these combat fantasies happen when she is in the Brothel fantasy doing some kind of dance that is so hypnotic that none of the mouth breathing lecherous men in the film can resist watching? Yeah, aren't all men so horrible. Did I also mention that we never...ever...see Baby Doll Dance?! I guess that no one puts Baby in a corner!

This was not the worst part of this film. I can dig the dragon and steam powered zombies and I like attractive women a great deal, however not only do we get the convoluted crappy story line, we are also treated to some kind of tepid EST inspired sophistry they try to pass off as eastern mysticism. Basically, they try to tell us that everything that is bad in our lives is self inflicted and the only way out is to fight our self destructive natures. This is all bolstered by Scott Glen spouting cliche and arm chair philosophy.

Rubbish.

It was like watching an hour and a half horrible video game written by an undersexed 14 year old Hentai nerd.