Sucker Punch is the story of a young woman known only as “Baby Doll” (Emily Browning) who finds herself imprisoned in an insane asylum by her stepfather, seeking the inheritance of Baby Doll’s recently deceased mother. She, along with the other inmates, begins a plan to escape the asylum before she is lobotomized.

To cope with the horrors of her environment, Baby Doll regresses into a semi-catatonic state, in which she perceives the asylum as a brothel fronting as a dance club, and the gathering of specific items relevant to their escape (a map, fire, etc) as enormous battle setpieces with she and her friends as gun toting super-soldiers.

I went into Sucker Punch with fairly low expectations. They initial trailers I saw for Sucker Punch set my hopes very high, this was exactly the movie I wanted to have made, I thought to myself. But then, Sucker Punch was released, and subsequently buried beneath a mountain of poor reviews and my excitement was dampened.

But, not wanting to let others tell me how to think, I went and saw Sucker Punch anyway. I walked into the theater nervous, but with an open mind and a strong will to enjoy whatever platter Sucker Punch served up to me. Thankfully, I was rewarded.

Sucker Punch is a movie about a team of ridiculously attractive young women armed with guns, blades, mech suits, kung-fu, and most importantly, a hatred of pants; who battle (amongst other things) WW1 steampunk German zombies, giant samurai robots, and dragons in an attempt to gather items crucial to their escape, video game style. 

While I was expecting a incoherent jumble of a plot, I received, well, an incoherent jumble of apblot that was both subtle and nuanced. The other reviews you you may read are going to say this was just a sexploitation eye candy fest, or some other nonsense about the women being dressed skimpy, and that’s that.

But Sucker Punch is more than that, it’s about these women fighting for their survival. The plot, I admit, can be very difficult to follow (provided one isn’t paying proper attention) but I searched hard for the little bits of this or that, that brought the movie together for me. However, I feel many other viewers will be overblown by the film’s over the top action and beautiful women.

Adding to the somewhat overcomplicated plotline, is the fact that the dialogue just isn’t very good. The writing is shaky, and some of the actors seem to have real difficulty delivering it properly (please just leave cinema forever Vanessa Hudgens). It’s not overly terrible, nor cringe-worthy, but it’s not good either. 

But flaws aside, there was just so, so, much that I loved about Sucker Punch. The plot I found to be very interesting and refreshingly different, the soundtrack is perfect, the girls are beautiful and convincingly badass, the setpieces are awe inspiring, the overblown action is delivered perfectly, and Zach Snyder brings his trademark gritty and stylized, almost comic book feel to this movie, that I love so very much.

Sucker Punch is a thoroughly stylish and entertaining movie, and I enjoyed it very much, despite other members of the target audience, and more importantly the majority of critics hating it. I feel Sucker Punch is misunderstood, and I urge you to give it a chance, even if I seem to be the only person doing so.

-Reviewed by Jack Kelleher