Weekly Review -- Let the mind games begin

Sucker Punch (2011) -- Billed as one of the hotly anticipated films of 2011, it was a surprise to many, including yours truly, when the latest Zack Snyder effort was promptly knocked out by critics and audiences alike. Labeled as sloppy, reckless and, worst of all, misogynistic, the film was dismissed and soon forgotten. Flawed though it is, Sucker Punch is undoubtedly a phantasm feast, with a unique story to match its nightmarish realms.

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**

After her evil stepfather commits her to a mental institution, Babydoll (Emily Browning) has five days until she is subjected to a lobotomy. Desperate to escape, she loses herself in her imagination running wild, inventing steroid-fueled battlefields that she navigates with a group of fellow patients -- Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) -- and a mentor (Scott Glenn). In order to get away, the women need to locate five essentials, but will they last long enough to beat the outside forces that keep closing in?

The problem with Sucker Punch is the contradictory method it utilizes to make its points. What purpose did the strip club story serve exactly? I would have enjoyed the multiple warrior fantasies that Babydoll experiences, but without the entire sleaze context. Come to think of it, it is funny how the previews had omitted that part. Was there not a way to link Babydoll's agony directly to these gorgeously disturbing worlds, their magnitude a polar opposite of her current circumstances? It even makes more sense than having the club as go-between, in my opinion. And no, the skimpy outfits do not help. We are supposed to be watching women fighting for their lives, not Barbie dolls doing a runway show. Also, what on Earth is going on with those names? Babydoll, Sweet Pea, Rocket... if the film is meant to be satirizing sexist entertainment, it constantly keeps turning on itself. However, that is precisely the reason why I never got the sense that the film was this big, threatening, anti-woman howl. It feels as though Snyder had intended to create an action fantasy with a feminist slant, but got distracted along the way by visions of pretty CGI landscapes and the boys-and-toys mentality. I do not even think that Snyder is the one to blame for the film ending up as a mash-up of dichotomies, since I keep imagining Hollywood (male) execs expanding their wallets and proportionally plunging the (female) actors' necklines deeper into chauvinist debt.

The performances are mostly compelling, but suffering from a hollow script. Browning is ethereal as Babydoll, who brandishes a sword just as easily as she pulls a trigger. Cornish gives a complex performance as Sweet Pea, a girl unaware of herself until tested, and Malone is memorable as Sweet Pea's sister, the often idealistic Rocket. Jon Hamm is excellent playing two very different roles, although he could have used more scenes, and Oscar Isaac's loathsome orderly Blue makes one's skin crawl.

A film like Sucker Punch is either a huge hit or a huge miss, since there is no middle ground when it comes to female empowerment. This is a theme that does not so much require grandiosity as it does finesse in presentations of its metaphorical value. Unfortunately, when intellectual depth and clarity is overpowered by eye candy shuffle, so is any significance that a particular work might have had. Sucker Punch has good intentions, but its thesis fades into a parody of itself through its own conflicted psyche, getting stuck in a wasteland between squandered potential and mixed messages.

6/10