Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 23% (Critics) / 48% (Audience)
Directed By: Zack Snyder
Written By: Zack Snyder and Steve Shibuya
Starring: Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jena Malone, Jamie Chung and Abbie Cornish

Synopsis: An innocent girl is framed for murder by her abusive stepfather and sent to an institution. Once there the young girl retreats into alternative reality to cope with the harsh environment while devising a plan to escape along with several other inmates.

The Good:
To it’s credit SUCKER PUNCH has great action scenes and really inventive fight choreography with the gun usage being morphed into martial arts maneuvers of a sort. The visuals in this film are also some of the more impressive I have seen in a while. Concepts like giant robot shoguns brandishing gatling guns and steampunk zombie Nazis are the things of geek nirvana.

The Bad:
Emily Browning was dreadful and seemed to be on muscle relaxers or something throughout most of this movie. Carla Gugino is one of my favorite actresses but that bizarre accent she attempted was so unwise.

The Ugly:
I am a Zach Snyder fan…I loved 300, think WATCHMEN is one of the best comic book movies and hold the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake up as one of the best horror films of the 2000’s. As a director Snyder has a unique visual flair and the ability to make truly unforgettable scenes. that being said, as a writer Zach Snyder is terrible and should stick to only writing his name on checks.
The entire concept of the mental hospital/burlesque school for troubled girls was insulting to any moviegoer with an ounce of brain matter but it was made even worse by all of the sexist nonsense that was added in for no good reason. It makes one wonder if maybe Snyder has some deep rooted issues with women that would be better served by his seeing a therapist instead of gaining his catharsis through film.

Final Verdict: SUCKER PUNCH had the germ of an idea that would have made a wonderful sci-fi/fantasy action movie but instead it was crushed beneath a truly terrible bit of misogynistic exploitation misguidedly attempting to embody some Bizarro version of “girl power”. D