Suckerpunch

When I was 12 years old I was a massive fan of action movies. I watched nothing else, and I used to devote a good amount of time to imaging the most awesome action scenes my 12 year old brain would allow, and wish like crazy I would have the opportunity to make a movie with such genius. Of course, I wouldn't have had a clue how to string those action scenes together with character or cohesive plot. And I give you Suckerpunch.

Because basically, that's what this movie feels like. A bunch of random action scenes thrown together with some scantily clad women, no bothersome storyline to worry about and you've gor]t your perfect 12 year old male fantasy wish fulfilment. This was actually the first movie of 2011 that I was looking forward to, and I was hoping that the director of 300 and Dawn of the Dead would give us this over the top fun ride like Kick Ass was last year. However whilst Kick Ass had funny dialogue, characters I cared about and a solid plot to string the over the topness (is that a valid expression?) together, Suckerpunch had none of the above.

Not much can be said about the film without giving stuff away (not that there's much to give away) but basically there's a bunch of orphan girls in a whore house/burlesque house, they want to escape and start using their imagination alot. And that's where the pointless, but admittedly awesome, action scenes come in. And I can defiantly commend the film for these scenes, as they are very pretty and imaginative and a lot of fun to watch. The films structure of having these random action scenes interspersed throughout the film feels as though the director is trying to "video game for the big screen" or something like that, but if wanted to watch a video game, I would have rented one out instead and had more fun controlling the action myself. Also, alot of video games have better plots than the weak excuse for a story that holds the action scenes together.

The ending of the film almost seems to insult the audiences intelligence by trying to make out that the film is really much deeper than it appears, but I doubt that anyone was fooled. The film seems to be trying to send a message of women's lib or female empowerment or something, but maybe I could have care more about this if I cared at all about the characters. Apart from a short opening sequence showing how the main character, Baby Doll" came to be in her situation, we don't really find out anything about the characters at all.

If I had to describe this film in one word it would be garbage. If I had to describe it in two words it would be tolerable garbage. I'm sure some people will overlook this films many flaws due to the impressive action scenes and the fact there are some somewhat original ideas on display here, but I can't. I can't really give the film any less than two stars due to how good the action scenes were, but that all it's getting.

** out of *****