Sucker Punch is a new movie written, directed, and produced by Zack Snyder.  This is Mr. Snyder’s first original screenplay.  His previous work was in adapting popular comics like Frank Miller’s 300 and Alan Moore’s Watchmen to the big screen.  If you were a fan of those movies then you should skip reading anymore reviews and go watch Sucker Punch because everything that made those movies good is in Sucker Punch.  For example, like 300, Sucker Punch has clean, spectacular action scenes and like Watchmen, Sucker Punch has an off beat, comic book sensibility.  The real difference between Sucker Punch and 300 is that Mr. Snyder trades in the barely clothed, airbrushed beefcake for a bunch of beautiful women in burlesque outfits.  To complement the beautiful women Mr. Snyder creates some of the most beautiful settings and visuals to ever grace the silver screen.  The settings are as widely varied as they are beautiful and range from World War II trenches to futuristic trains.  Mr. Snyder populates these lovely settings with a wide variety of goons for his lovely cast to beat up on.  The goons the girls beat up on read like a list of everything video game nerds love and include dragons, robots, giant metal samurai, and clockwork Nazi zombies.  There is even a story that ties all of things things together coherently.  Even if the story gets a bit confusing and could use a strategy guide so that everyone can follow what is going on.

In and around all of the awesome action and scantily clad hotties is the story of the trials and travails of a young waif nicknamed Babydoll.  Babydoll is sent to a crooked insane asylum by her avaricious step-father to have her grey matter rearranged with an icepick.  She has five days to escape the asylum before the traveling doctor that preforms  the icepick lobotomies can get around to her. This is where Sucker Punch gets confusing because Babydoll decides to kick the squalid reality of the insane asylum to the curb about five minuets after being committed.  Squalid reality is replaced with some kind of bordello or burlesque club fantasy world.  From there things get more confusing as more fantasies get layered on top of the fantasy bordello world.  The layered fantasies are how Sucker Punch is able to travel instantly and seamlessly from a bordello to a World War II trench to futuristic train and back again.  All of the fantasy voyages to stunning locations play to Mr. Snyder’s strengths as an action movie director.  Instead of watching Babydoll sit around her cell and figure out how to escape she is simply given a video game style quest to get four items from an old man.  Then she fights three giant metal samurai.  This lets Mr. Snyder show off exactly how good he is at making action scenes and stunning fantasy vistas.

Mr. Snyder continues to play to his strengths as an action movie director for the rest of the movie.  Babydoll recruits her fellow inmates to help her steal the four items that she needs to escape.  Instead of showing the girls sneaking around and stealing things in squalid reality we are treated to fantasies where the ladies fight a laundry list of things nerds love.  They end up fighting dragons, robots, and clockwork Nazi zombies with a variety of guns, swords, and giant mecha.  Mr. Snyder has created a movie that reads like a nerd’s wet dream because the ladies run around these fantasy battles in some very hot costumes.  The hot chicks and awesome action are enough to make a thoroughly entertaining movie but Mr. Snyder seems to be trying for more.  Not to say that he pulls off a deep and meaningful story with Sucker Punch but he does seems to be trying for more than just awesome action.  The problem is that deep and meaningful is not his forte.  Awesome action is.

Hell Yeah!

Whether or not Sucker Punch is anything more than just an action movie is a matter of opinion.  Most of the critics seem to be arguing that Sucker Punch is as shallow as a puddle but I don’t buy that.  After watching the movie I found myself reflecting on it for a few days.  That there was something there for me to reflect on at all tells me that something deeper than the plot of the Expendables was happening.  I believe that this movie was made with the video game generation, my generation, in mind.  Sucker Punch seems to be taking the dictum that movies should show, don’t tell to the extreme. The video game generation is used to taking show, don’t tell to the extreme because video games usually only have about five minuets of exposition for each hour of play time.  Video games can’t use more exposition than that because it would get in the way of the game itself.  For example, some of the critics knocked Sucker Punch for not characterizing its characters very well.  It seemed like they were expecting the characters to tell the audience about themselves through exposition or dialogue.  Personally, I found the characters to be well characterized but I got a good read of who their character are from their appearance, weapon selection, and fighting style.  You know, the same way video games characterize their characters in a absence of exposition or dialogue.  In a similar vein, Sucker Punch never simply explains what is going on.  Instead everything is simply shown or not shown.  Taking the show, don’t tell dictum to the extreme.  This makes Sucker Punch confusing but potentially deeper than what it appears to be at first glance.  Of course, because nothing is explained any deeper narrative must be inferred, so any claim to depth is nothing more than an opinion inferred from the movie.  Mr. Snyder would have been better off if he took the time to add a bit of telling to his movie instead of simply showing alone, but showing does seem to be his forte.

Sucker Punch is a love it or hate it kinda movie but love it or hate it Sucker Punch deserves to be seen in the theaters, because it has such gorgeous visual effects.  Mr. Snyder is a master of created beautiful vistas and clean action scenes even if he might be better off adapting works to the big screen rather than writing his own material.  Of course, anyone part of the 20-30 year old male gamer demographic should see this movie because it was made for you.  For everyone else, I tried to explain what Sucker Punch is without spoiling anything so you can make up your own mind.  It is not like I am getting paid to put your butt in a theater seat.