Open your mind for 'Sucker Punch'

Film: Sucker Punch (U/A)
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac
Rating: ***1/2

Set in the mid-twentieth century, Sucker Punch sees a young girl, Baby Doll (Browning), deposited by her wicked stepfather into a hellish shelter cum bordello presided over by madam Gorski (Gugino) and a sociopathic showman Blue Jones (Isaac).
 
With the caged inmates being groomed to seduce the establishment's influential clientele, Baby Doll, under the tutelage of madam Gorski, while commencing a seductive routine (at which she possesses innate skill), gets whisked away to fantastic locales (in this case, feudal Japan) where she meets a spiritual guide, the enigmatic wise man (Glenn), who enlightens her about her inner craving for freedom.

She shares this aspiration with her saucy, tough-as-nails inmates Blondie (Hudgens), Amber (Chung) and sisters Rocket (Malone) and the reluctant Sweet Pea (Cornish). The girls, on forming a bond, venture into scenes from Baby Doll’s imagination which include the desolate trenches of WW1, and a mediaeval realm, among other places where they face evils that parallel the immediate evils in their lives.

With a style that juggles a burlesque, yet supposedly empowering, treatment of a bevy of nubile protagonists, kitschiness, pumping rock 'n' roll, and videogame aesthetics while, at same time, holding lofty aspirations of cleverly handling serious and sensitive topics such as child abuse and violence against women with stabs at spirituality, the opinions of several viewers that Snyder panders to ADD sufferers is likely to be buttressed.

Yes, the film doesn't quite make the impact it would want to make with its writing, but does the story truly fall short or is that just something to be expected from a film that exalts the worth of reveries?

Performance-wise, Hudgens is the weakest while Gugino, Isaac and Glenn are the strongest, the latter definitely being an asset to the film.
 
Ultimately Sucker Punch offers dissociative thrills similar to those conjured up by the likes of Terry Gilliam. Purists, however, who believe that story should not be made to take a backseat or forgone all together, should avoid this lest they find themselves subjected to an over-long music video hell.

Snyder, for his recent offering, may risk derision as an underwhelming writer, whose vision tends to favour style over substance, hence making him better suited for frame-by-frame adaptations. But Sucker Punch is worth a look, especially if you aren't particularly in the mood for a film with an ultra-rock-solid story.