Sucker Punch | C-

Sucker Punch is a teenage male's fever dream made into film. Filled with battleaxes, bullets and bombshells (both blonde and ballistic), but short on quality characterization, Sucker Punch is all style with no substance.

Emily Browning (A Series of Unfortunate Events) stars as Baby Doll, a young woman who is forcibly committed to an insane asylum by her unscrupulous stepfather. There she learns that the mental institution is a front for an illicit brothel, filled with other unfortunate girls. Faced with an impending lobotomy and the arrival of a "high-roller," Baby Doll decides to escape from the facility. While Baby Doll distracts various members of the asylum's staff with erotic dances, her accomplices (Abbie Cornish, Candy; Jena Malone, Donnie Darko; Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung, Sorority Row) steal the items they'll need to escape. During her dances, Baby Doll envisions fantastical and anachronistic battles with everything from Gatling gun wielding samurai to steampunk zombies in World War I trenches.

By all means, Sucker Punch should be a great movie. With an intriguing, original story and the unique Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) at the helm, Sucker Punch should have been Snyder's magnum opus. Unfortunately, the plot has more holes than Baby Doll's bullet-ridden phantasms. The movie is poorly paced, and the story slows to a crawl on more than one occasion. Another script-related problem is the dialogue — the characters are given lines so clichéd that they can be predicted before they're spoken. The delivery of the dialogue itself is no better, as most of the actresses seem to be simply reading their lines, practically devoid of emotion or even intonation.

Despite its shortcomings, Sucker Punch does have some positive aspects. First and foremost is the choreography of the fight scenes. The battles feature practically every cool combat maneuver imaginable, and there's never a dull kill. The visual effects are also excellent, with even the most outrageous creatures of Baby Doll's imagination looking lifelike. As for Snyder's direction, it can be a bit overwhelming at times. He feels the need to shoot nearly every shot with a different technique, and while this style fits the hyperkinetic action sequences well, it just isn't a match for the more low-key scenes. Rounding out the Sucker Punch experience are the polished art direction and editing, without which the movie would have been an ugly and incomprehensible mess.

Even though it looks incredible, the appeal of Sucker Punch is only skin deep. While it had the makings of a blockbuster, its lacking screenplay and weak acting produced an average end result. It's a shame Zack Snyder couldn't have imagined a better script.