Sucker Punch

In a nutshell: 120 minutes of my life I will never get back.

Popcorn rating: 0.5/5

I love 300. And not just because it’s got fit, moody manly types running round in naught more than a pair of leather pants (well, mostly because of that). See, 300 was epic. It took a great graphic novel and it put it on screen in an equally great movie. 300 made those mythical Spartans live and breathe and fight to the death before our very eyes and I, for one, was enthralled. So, I love 300. So much so in fact that, since Christmas, I having been getting myself all happy and eager about 300 director Zack Snyder’s latest comic book style offering, Sucker Punch.

With awe-inspiring trailers, Sucker Punch promised us tough women battling to the death in action scenes so f*cking spectacular they would blow everything else we had seen before out of the water. I didn’t even care that the women were dressed like a 12-year-old’s idea of a hot date because Sucker Punch was Alice in Wonderland with machine guns. Oh, how my little heart went pit-a-pat.

Then I saw it. Depressing, miserable, over sexualised crud that I can, in all honesty, suggest no-one ever bother seeing. Ever.

I’ll even tell you why.

Sucker Punch’s lead character is 20-year Babydoll (Emily Browning) who looks like she was designed by a hungover Christina Aguilera – all big eyes, chubby cheeks and teeny, tiny clothing. From the very beginning poor old Babydoll’s life is rubbish and, not just because of her moniker, but because ALL MEN in the world are evil bastards and ALL WOMEN are vapid and beautiful sex objects.

Dumped into an asylum and facing a lobotomy, Babydoll retreats into a dream world where she and her mates, sexy Amber, sexy Blondie, sexy Rocket and  – mixing it up a little – sexy but hard Sweetpea have to find various “objects” which will help them to freedom. This sees Babydoll and crew dropped into various yawnsome video game scenarios where the gals CGI fight CGI monsters. Never before have action scenes been so pointless, so unimaginative and so inexplicably depressing.

And that’s it really. Throw in a bit more misery with the girls being dancing prostitutes, duly horrifically bullied by Blue (a pleasingly malevolent turn by Oscar Isaac, which earned the 0.5 rating) and quickly your fairly pleasant pre-movie mood evaporates into, well, kinda feeling  dirty and more than a a little bit sad.

Yip, you’ve been sucker punched – and, if you ask me – it’s by the fact you may have actually paid to see this gak.

Reviewer: Curlyshirley