Sucker Punch was advertised as an action movie with girls in minimal clothing and that is exactly what viewers got.
The film wasn’t exactly as female empowering as the creators and actors promoted it, but it definitely wasn’t only catering to the fantasies of misogynistic males. Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Jenna Malone and Jamie Chung still managed to kick a** as promised and none looked out of place holding a weapon.
Browning’s character, Babydoll, is placed in an insane asylum where she meets Cornish, Hudgens, Malone and Chung. She tries to escape the harsh realities of life by creating fictional worlds where she and her co-stars dominate. Babydoll slips into her imaginary action life by hypnotizing the employees of the asylum with an erotic dance that the audience never actually gets to see. At first it seems sexually frustrating not seeing the actual dance, however, in the end, its mystique seems to fit the movie.
The frequent switching between the alternate world and reality enhanced the film. The two worlds began to parallel each other more frequently, adding suspense to the movie and even eliciting gasps from the audience members at some points. It is clear that the audience, male and female alike, were rooting for these characters’ survival.
Although viewers become easily invested in the heroines, the film lacked character development. The ladies could have used more depth. Still, the movie had an original plot that was interesting and relatively simple to follow. Director Zack Snyder’s irregular storyline and surprise twist at the end was a great artistic touch that enhanced the movie because of the
clever foreshadowing.
There really wasn’t much acting to critique, since the girls were either standing around an illusory burlesque club or fighting in imaginary battle sequences, both of which required minimal clothing from the girls. It seemed that the majority of the movie was CGI and required little acting from the cast.
Of all the movies that have come out in 3D (unnecessarily), Sucker Punch could have benefited from following suit. The mind blowing graphics of its action sequences filled with dragons and other extraordinary enemies practically screamed for 3D; it was unfortunate that it wasn’t. Additionally, the color palette of the movie was visually stunning, using unsaturated colors for the girls’ dreary reality, and a more vivid palette for their imaginary escape to freedom.
Undoubtedly the best thing about the movie was its stellar soundtrack. Legendary artists contributed to the project such as Bjork, and had amazing covers of many great songs such as The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and a mash-up of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and the Armageddon’s “I Want It All.” Two of the cover songs that occur in the beginning of the movie, Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” and The Smiths’ “Asleep” are sung by the movie’s very own lead, Browning. Her soft vocals definitely enhanced the movie’s dark, twisted scenes while the remaining soundtrack’s gritty sounds accentuated their battle scenes.
It feels as if Synder was looking to please an audience who would appreciate the fantasy of this world. It was an artistic movie for entertainment not meant to be taken so seriously. Movies nowadays are stuck in the routine of reality, and it was refreshing to see an original movie promote something so basic yet unfairly overlooked as imagination. Sucker Punch may not be a critically acclaimed movie, but it was definitely an entertaining, aesthetically pleasing film that the audience cannot deny.
