When the trailer for this came out early last year I can remember my exact thought processes. Something along the lines of "that looks like a great action film, plus the main character is a pretty girl in some kind of fetishised version of a school-girl uniform - this I have to see". Then the reviews came out and were universally bad. It was at this point that I realised I couldn't justify seeing the film without acknowledging that the only reason to do so was to gratuitously prev over girls in revealing costumes. Now while I'm not entirely opposed to that idea, I'm not going to pay good money to do it.Thankfully my housemate Rich stepped up to the plate and rented the Blue-Ray, so we were able to appreciate full HD quality girls in fetish gear battling steam-powered WW1 German zombie-soldiers in the comfort of our own home. Allow me to write that sentence again: "girls in fetish gear battling steam-powered WW1 German zombie-soldiers". Seldom in the history of cinema has something made less sense while sounding like so much fun.
The story - as far as we might label it such - involves 'Baby Doll', a 20 year old woman who dresses like a school girl and is sent to a mental institution by her evil step father after an incident in which her sister is shot. Note that Baby Doll is 20, an entirely unimportant plot point, but something we are told none-the-less so that everyone can perv without guilt (aside - the actress playing Baby Doll is Emily Browning, and is definitely over 20). Anyway, Baby Doll copes with her time in the hospital by appearing to escape into a fantasy world where she and the other girls are part of a bordello run by the evil Blue (in real life a sleazy orderly) and their dancing coach Vera Gorski (who in 'real life' is the hospital's doctor). To escape, Baby Doll discovers she must find 5 objects. To do this she enlists the help of 4 other girls. When finding the items the girls appear to escape into a second fantasy world in which they glam-up, tool-up and mow down whatever baddies happen to be in their way.
As a film, 'Sucker Punch' is totally rubbish. As a spectacle, it's an eye-popping concoction of steam-punk influenced computer game levels complete with easily-dispatched goons, eye shadow, stockings, robots, orcs, guns, swords and crazy kung fu skills. The trouble is that none of this action has any connection to the story that's going on in the mental hospital. It's entirely possible that there's an interesting tale about dealing with mental illness hiding under the surface in 'Sucker Punch', but it's utterly blown away by this hail of bullets and samurai swords. When the girls escape into their fetish gear and tool up on anachronistic weaponry it's just an excuse to leer at their outfits and gawp at the explosions as wave after wave of pointless automatons (first zombie soldiers, then orcs, then robots) are dispatched.
I can't have too much of a go at 'Sucker Punch' as I knew what I was getting into at the start and watching the action scenes was definitely something of a guilty pleasure. However I am going to add my voice to the near unanimity of opinion that says it's rubbish. Sucker Punch sucks.
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