Sucker Punch

...it feels like I've been blown it - for watching this ludicrous pile of nonsense, marginally worse in my book recently than even the absurd Wonder Woman, also directed by Zack Snyder along with other clap-trap like 300, Watchmen and Man of Steel!

I have to admit that there's only one reason why I even considered watching this - no prizes for guessing that! It's a ridiculous story about a 20 year old girl (who is made throughout to look like a child, raising dubious questions, even being called 'Babydoll') who's mother dies. There's a wicked step-father who kills her sister then blames her for it as she won't 'do favours' for him, subsequently having her locked up in an asylum for the insane to, five days later, receive her lobotomy punishment!

This is no ordinary asylum though - oh no, it's an asylum run by a madman who ensnares young girls like her then forces them to dance and supply personal services for the local dignitaries and other paying customers. The rest of it is about her whipping up the similarly scantily-clad girls around her into an escape bid!

The film then dives into some fantasy where as she dances she enters some sort of dream world and each of the four times this happens it's based around having to 'collect' an item from the asylum staff, mirrored in her dreams as (usually) some sort of battle scene or race against time adventure where monsters and soldiers have to be defeated in order to make it through. It seems that if any of the 'girl team' get hurt or injured in the fantasy world, they also get hurt in reality back in the asylum when the fantasy-dance is over.

I can't believe what tripe it is, though it certainly has its fans, reading online reviews, I'm guessing from the comic-book nerds out there! I'm surprised at Scott Glenn getting involved - as I am for all of them really - including gorgeous starlet of the show Emily Browning. (Ignore me, it's an addiction!)

This film is a choreographed, fantasy, pseudo-erotic, special-effects driven bizarre notion brought together for what purpose I'm not sure. Shot in dark fantasy style sepia tone for a lot of the time like his other films listed above and with occasional nods to Gothic outings such as Batman and The Addams Family here and there it will certainly appeal to teenage boys and those who are desperately seeking a story-line where girls/women get one over on men in a male-driven society. But even for them, it's so bizarre and off-the-wall that they won't take it seriously either!

Unless you want to look at Emily Browning dressed up as a little girl, give it a miss!