Lollipop Pugilism

With nothing better to do on Sunday afternoon, I moseyed on down to my local theater and took in a showing of Sucker Punch. It was alright.

The closest thing I can compare it to would probably be Inception, in the sense that almost the entire movie takes place outside of its own reality. The story concerns a twenty-year old girl who, after standing up to her abusive father in defense of her younger sister, finds herself committed to an absolute cesspool of a psychiatric facility. Courtesy of a bribe from her father to an unscrupulous orderly, she is scheduled for a lobotomy in five days' time. It is at this point that the movie departs utterly from this plot, and our hero, henceforth referred to by her stage name of Baby Doll, finds herself as the latest acquisition of an upscale whorehouse, awaiting the arrival of the dreaded “high roller” who has reportedly purchased her virginity. Unable to cope with this reality (which in fact is not her reality but a grand delusion her mind created because it couldn’t cope with her real reality) Baby Doll frequently escapes into vivid fantasies where she fights for her life through her own subconscious, battling demons of varying size and style. Whether these are metaphors for things she is actually doing or mere escapist fantasies is not immediately clear, but the movie challenges its viewers to question just how much that distinction really matters. In the end, one might suppose it would matter a lot, what with the impending lobotomy and all, but by the time you ask that question there are samurais on screen, so it’s not worth thinking too hard about.

And that last line really sums up a large portion of the movie’s appeal. The plot ends up being half-way decent in its own right, but its primary purpose is to serve as a vehicle for a series of increasingly fantastical scenes with Baby Doll and her fellow inmates. It is at these points where the movie really shines. The artwork is really quite good, and it is rendered beautifully. The scenes are also nicely choreographed. They aren’t really happening- not even for pretend- but these scenes are the movie: which is to say, an entertaining series of escapist flights of fancy.

So if you want an Inception-degree brain-bender a fantasy twist, you’re likely to be disappointed. If you want to see a little girl kung fu fight a 12-foot stone samurai, go see it in IMAX.