Let's be clear, this is the second time I've seen Sucker Punch, the first was at an advance screening on March 23. In short, I thought this movie was awesomely kick-ass, and not for all the most obvious reasons. Yes, it is filled with skimpily dressed young women kicking ass in outrageous fantasy/sci-fi scenarios, and there's nothing wrong with any of that, but what really grabbed me was how the events of the real world are veiled by layers of fantasy worlds stacked on top of the real world. Allow me to attempt an explanation... and fair warning, the following is all spoiler.The lead character's mother dies leaving her wealth to her 20 year old daughter and much younger daughter (probably around 10 to 12). Of course, the evil step father wants this wealth, and so murders the younger daughter and blames the older daughter. To complete his evil plan, he has the elder daughter committed to Lennox House for the mentally insane. This way, if the girl talks, no one will believe her, but to make sure the cover-up is sound, he also pays off the head orderly to have the daughter lobotomized in five days, thereby sending her to "paradise." Upon entering the asylum, the girl is given the name Baby Doll, which is the only name we know her by. The world of the asylum transforms into a different world in Baby Doll's mind, that of a brothel, where the asylum's psychiatrist is the madame, and the head orderly (Blue) owns the girls and uses them to bring in the guests which feeds his other illegal operations.
The girls, as whores in this brothel, "dance" for the customers. Yes, those quotes are intentional. This is a PG-13 movie and Zach Snyder goes to extensive lengths to make it reasonably safe for the younger audience while providing much darker undertones for the adults who can read between the lines. When Baby Doll dances, everyone pays attention. She's given a plan (by the guardian angel the opening narration speaks of) to acquire four items that will aid in an escape. If you've seen the trailer, you know these items well: a map, fire, a knife, and a key. The acquisition of these items leads to another layer of fantasy as Baby Doll switches to epic scenes of carnage where the five freedom fighters are the super heroes.
The fantasy worlds themselves are interesting mashups of multiple genres. Mecha samurai demon warriors wielding RPGs and Gatling guns. WWI trench warfare where the German soldiers are steampunk zombies and also there's a mecha robot thing piloted by one of the girls. There's a sort of Lord of the Rings fantasy with humans vs orcs and there are dragons and then the girls are piloting a B-25 Mitchell. Finally, there's the weakest sequence, a train filled with mechanized gunman, which really isn't a mashup of anything. All these fantasies happen in Baby Doll's mind as she's "dancing," so she can keep the targets occupied while the other girls acquire the necessary item. In reality (the layer we can't see) we suspect Baby Doll is actually letting herself be raped by the various asylum employees and what we see in the fantasy world is her internal fight for survival.
So on the surface, we've got cool action sequences that, underneath, are much darker and possibly a little inspiring as we see this young woman fighting so incredibly strongly to maintain her identity and sanity in this insane reality she finds herself forced into.
I've heard a fair bit of debate as to whether this movie is all about extreme violence and girls in short skirts or if it's about female empowerment or something else. I'm going to go with self-empowerment in general. The narration you hear at the end of the movie is basically saying that you have the weapons inside you to fight whatever comes up in life. Here we have this extreme case of a person being forced into an unbearably unfair and unjust situation and she fights with every weapon available to her and, in the end, sacrifices herself to give freedom to the other. We all have the strength within us to do what's right, we just have to recognize it and use it. I like the message (if I got it right) and I love the movie. I understand many don't or won't, and that's fine. To me, it's a kick-ass movie with some deeply dark undertones and a message of self-empowerment and in my world, that can't be a bad thing.
