As I’ve said in the past while reviewing films - when you don’t have anything nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all.

So, to give myself the ability to tear this film apart, let me start by saying this - the blu-ray of Sucker Punch will make for a great home theater demo. Also, Jena Malone (as “Rocket”) is absolutely freaking adorable.

That having been said - Sucker Punch is an absolutely awful film. Soon to be the textbook example of what happens when a studio gives a director complete free reign, especially after delivering some major hits.  It is literally every Zach Synder trope (slow mo, cgi, attractive women) thrown on screen without anyone telling him no.  And considering he wrote the script, it’s not surprising to say that it is just as indulgent and awful as the filmmaking present.

To truly break down what went wrong, I need to go into some pretty heavy spoiler territory.

In turn, if you don’t want Sucker Punch to be spoiled for you, turn away here. Just believe me when I say that you want to avoid this movie at ALL COSTS.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE!

Sucker Punch kicks off with a montage presenting the terrible life of our lead, “Babydoll” (played by Emily Browning).  Her mother dies, she’s left with her awful stepfather (you can tell he’s bad because of his anger over the will), and she wants to protect her younger sister.   After the implied rape of her little sister, Babydoll confronts the evil stepfather with a gun. She tries to shoot him, but in the skirmish, Babydoll wounds and murders her little sister.

This results in Babydoll being taken to a corrupt mental asylum. Babydoll’s stepfather pays one of the head orderlies to falsify information so that Babydoll will be lobotomized. The orderly agrees to the deal, Babydoll stays at the mental asylum for 5 days, waiting for the doctor who will perform the lobotomy (played by Jon Hamm), she tries to connect with the head therapist, Ms. Gorski (Carla Gugino), and ultimately, is lobotomized.

Yes. That’s your opening sequence. Imagine that with random hyper cut slow mo and a terrible rendition of both “Sweet Dreams” and “Where is My Mind”, and you have a fraction of the awfulness on display in the first ten minutes.  Not to mention, that’s pretty much a complete story there. Where the hell does the movie go from there?

This is where it gets downright silly.  Upon the pick being hammered into Babydoll’s brow, the movie shifts to a dream sequence.

In this sequence, Babydoll imagines herself not in a bleak mental asylum, but instead forced into a brothel! (Such great dreams this girl has). Instead of her fellow patients, the girls of the asylum are dancing whores, trained by Madam Gorski to perform impressive dances for potential clients. The brothel is overseen by the Orderly, who is now a gangster that looks like Gomez Adams, complete with pencil thin mustache. Babydoll, a virgin, is now being saved for “The High Roller”, who will arrive in 5 days to deflower her. This, of course, is the dream sequence’s analog for Jon Hamm’s doctor character.

Already, there are a LOT of issues here. One - why the hell are we in a dream sequence? Two - I think Zach Snyder has some REALLY screwed up sexual issues. Mental asylum equated to a brothel? Lobotomization equated to losing your virginity? What?

But don’t worry folks - Babydoll’s got a plan! She’s going to break out of this brothel, and take her fellow girls with her! So she assembles her team - sister’s Rocket (the afformentioned Malone) and Sweet-Pea (Abbie Cornish), Blondie (a brunette, played by Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung, token minority).

How will she do this? By obtaining a series of items (a map, a knife, a lighter and a key), she will be able to launch their MacGuyver esq escape.  How will these items be obtained? Turns out Babydoll is a great dancer, and she can basically hypnotize any man who watches her dance, allowing the other four girls to swipe the items necessary.

I know, you’re already asking - “What do mechs and dragons have to do with everything?” THEY’RE METAPHORICAL!

Whenever Babydoll dances, the movie goes into a dream sequence (yes, dream sequence IN A DREAM SEQUENCE) where as opposed to watching Sweet Pea steal a map or watching Amber steal a lighter, you get to see the girls in giant, over the top action sequences, BARELY analogous to to the implied action! Why bother actually showing us why people are entranced by Babydoll’s dancing (in a VISUAL MEDIUM, NO LESS!) when instead you can have giant CG filled battles with girls in tiny costumes!

Taking a map becomes the five girls fighting steam-powered, clockwork Nazi zombies (yes, I did not add superfluous adjectives, that’s really how they’re described), taking a lighter becomes the girls fighting a dragon amongst orcs (of COURSE there are orcs), stealing a knife becomes a…battle with robots while trying to disable a bomb called “Kitchen Knife” (o…k…?).

But you know what the worst part is? THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE TELLS YOU THEY FAIL. IT’S A DREAM. IT’S A DREAM IN A DREAM. IT’S COMPLETELY FAKE. NONE OF IT MATTERS BECAUSE BABYDOLL IS LOBOTOMIZED. GAME OVER. YOU LOSE.

In turn, as an audience member - none of it matters! You know they fail, and it’s not even in an ironic way. You know this is a mission that doesn’t work, and since Synder shoots every action sequence in his trademark super slow-mo/speed up style, there’s even less weight to the proceedings than there would be if we weren’t shown the ending at the beginning of the damn movie.

Ugh.

So, take that recipe for a crap fest. Add more implied rape/torture and murder of women, and toss in some more shitty song covers.

But at least the robots and CGI samurai look cool? I guess.

Anyway, one thing leads to another, we get zapped back to the real world, and oh yeah, Babydoll still got lobotomized.

The movie tries to wrap things up by having the orderly arrested (alongside Jon Hamm trying to make chicken shit into chicken salad with his time on screen as the doctor), but the fact is - the entire movie, the entire story we were just told - was for nothing.

Somewhere, in this mess of a script, there was an interesting story. Show it to us in real time. Remove the creepy brothel dream layer, and just have Babydoll and the girls trying to escape (with Babydoll’s halucinations serving as the action sequences).

But instead of going the less is more route, Zach Snyder goes the more is more route, adding tight costumes, bizarre and uncomfortable sexual inferences and absolutely unnecessary and ridiculous storytelling to what could’ve been a decent film.

It’s abundantly clear that no one told Zach Snyder “No” during this entire process. It’s my hope that this review (and I’m sure others) is enough to say the sentence the studio couldn’t.

Should you see Sucker Punch? No.