This review will have more spoilers than my average movie review, just for the fact that i need to point out stuff that has changed from the theatrical cut to the extended cut.
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Sucker Punch actually weighs in as one of my least favorite movies of all time. Hot girls running around with guns is a great premise, but the backdrop of the movie was so scattered and depressing that it made the movie hard to enjoy.
The movie starts off in a bleak setting somewhere roughly between the 1940's and 1960's (i dont think it is every specifically stated). Our young "hero" is dealing with the death of her mother and now having to deal with her creepy stepfather, who seems to look a little too longingly at his stepdaughters. It is implied that he is either physically or sexually abusive to the girls, or at least intends to be now that the mother is out of the way.
At this point we run into our first extended scene. In the theatrical cut, Babydoll (as we come to know her) wildly shoots a pistol, missing her stepfather, but apparently hitting her younger sister with a ricochet. It actually isnt very clear at this point if she actually hit the sister with the ricochet as we are told later, or if the stepfather has killed the girl prior to Babydoll arriving. In the extended cut, Babydoll shoots twice, the first is the wild round shown in the theatrical cut, the second shot is lower, hitting the stepfather in the arm, and has a trajectory that is more likely to have actually hit the sister.
Fast forward a bit past Babydoll getting dropped off at the asylum and spending a quick minute montage showing her stay before the lobotomy that her stepfather and the shady asylum worker have arranged to keep her quiet. At this point we have the first, most drastic reality shift. I say it is the most drastic, because, while the action scenes are fantastical, they are clearly the product of Babydoll's imagination, whereas this initial reality shift is almost like turning on a different movie that just happens to have the same characters.
We get another extended/altered scene here. In the theatrical cut, it is sort of implied that the "High roller" will be coming to take Babydoll's virginity, in the extended cut, it is spelled right out for you, leaving no question. This is followed up by an extended "tour" scene, where Rocket is showing Babydoll around. In this extended cut, we see that the cook is heavily attracted to Rocket, making his attempted rape of her later a little less random, as we now know he is acting on pre-existing urges. Also we get a brief note that Blue (the manager) will often lock the girls in the cleaning closet when they misbehave, explaining the completely random event of putting SweatPea in the closet near the end of the movie.
We are also treated to a lengthy musical number that is only seen previously as part of the end credits. The musical number consists of Blue and Madame Gorski (the head mistress) singing a duet while they montage various other musical numbers, each highlighting one of the main girls. We also see a detailed look at the business aspects of the "theatre" that were only hinted at in the theatrical cut, mainly that men from the audience can go to a booking window and pay to have sex with girls from their favorite musical number, as well as plenty of gambling and drinking.
The girls (Babydoll, Sweatpea, Rocket, Amber, Blondie) band together to steal items to help them escape. Each of these adventures corresponds to one of Babydoll's dances (which we still never actually see) and subsequent dreamscape shifts. I'll give a breakdown of the dreamscapes later.
As each item is gathered, Blue becomes increasingly suspicious of what is going on and begins threatening the girls. These threats are more blatant in the extended cut, while they were more implied in the theatrical cut. All of this comes to a head during the last dreamscape, when water shorts out the radio while Babydoll is dancing for the cook, prompting him to realize the girls were trying to steal his knife. Rocket dives in front of her sister, Sweatpea, saving her from the cook, but taking the full length of the blade in the process.
At this point Sweatpea is sent to the closet (which we now understand the reasoning behind...), and the other girls are sent to get ready for the show. After a slightly longer, more heated exchange between Blue and Madame Gorski than in the theatrical cut, Blue kills both Amber and Blondie, shooting Blondie twice in the extended cut. In the theatrical cut, we are lead to believe these 2 were killed due to their escape plan, which is harsh to be sure, but in the extended cut, it is made clear that the girls are killed as a way to punish Madame Gorski after she wouldnt back down in the proceeding battle of wills.
Following this is a slightly longer, more detailed exchange between Blue and Babydoll, again laying out openly some of the things that were merely implied in the theatrical cut, and Babydoll stabs him as he attempts to force himself on her.
Babydoll frees Sweatpea from the closet, letting her know the other girls didnt make it, and they use the items they collected to escape the building, only to find a group of men in the courtyard that they have to pass through to fully escape. It is then that Babydoll realizes that she must sacrifice herself in order for Sweatpea to escape, and that this was always the way the adventure was supposed to end. Babydoll distracts the men as Sweatpea sneaks past them.
We now have 2 additional scenes. the first, we see Sweatpea taking a dress from a clothesline as she traverses the countryside, explaining how she arrives at the bus stop at the end of the movie wearing different clothes.
The second scene, is a rather uncomfortable scene in which Babydoll awakes in the bed of the High Roller. He then proceeds to explain to her that he has everything he could ever want, except people telling him the truth. With all his money and power, people will tell him whatever they think he wants to hear, and he has no way of knowing if he can trust people. His remedy for this, is that he seeks that one pure moment of truth when a virgin gives herself to him willingly, as he can see the truth of her actions in her eyes.
The scene as a whole left me feeling very uncomfortable, very sleazy for having sat and watched him say all those things.
As Babydoll gives herself to the High Roller, we snap back to the original reality, as the Doctor is finishing the lobotomy. He is startled by the look in her eyes, as if she wanted him to perform the procedure. It is here that Dr Gorski comes in and realizes that the orderly, Blue, has been forging her signature. We see Blue and other orderlies taking Babydoll to an abandoned area of the asylum where they place her in a chair. The other orderlies find this act to be one step to far and tell Blue that they dont want to hurt the girls anymore. Blue is dismayed at Babydoll's lack of response as he attempts to molest her, screaming that she is gone as the police burst in and arrest him. As the carry him out, he is crying out that it is the stepfather's fault and that he will tell the police everything.
The movie ends with Sweatpea (the only girl that did NOT want to escape) stepping into line to board a bus. Police stop her to question her, but she is rescued by the bus driver, who is the same man seen giving the girls orders during the different dreamscape sequences.
Now, as for the dreamscapes.
The first one is a temple, in which Babydoll first meets the Wise Man and receives her trademark weapons, the gun and sword. Immediately after gaining her weapons, she faces off against 3 giant stone samurai warriors. While this is a fun scene, the fighting is probably the least well done of the sequences.
The second is a WWI/WWII type setting, only instead of Nazis, the 5 girls face off against Steampunk zombies. Most of the girls are wearing some sort of modified military attire, with Amber wearing the most visual cues from military uniforms, and of course Babydoll wearing the schoolgirl outfit. I will mention that i liked Sweatpea's outfit the best, as it had more of a comic book character kinda vibe to it, with the hooded trenchcoat over the skimpy outfit.
This action sequence is slightly extended, giving Amber a few seconds of extra screen time, and giving Blondie a pretty wild solo shot where she mows down a field of zombies.
The third is a medieval setting in which 3 of the girls fight through a castle of orcs to retrieve the fire making stones from the throat of a baby dragon, while Amber flies a bomber plane with Blondie manning the guns. This sequence is again a bit longer, adding a second or 2 to the dragon's nest scene, and a longer fight with the orcs, in which the girls put away their guns and all get busy with swords. There is also a slightly longer scene toward the end of this sequence that shows more of the girls fighting the knights that have breached the castle, although no reasoning is ever given for why they may have attacked the girls.
The final sequence is a futuristic setting in which the girls (minus Blondie) are attempting to take some sort of weapon of mass destruction off of a high speed train bound for a city in the distance. The 3 girls attack the train while Amber flies the helicopter above. Inside the train is a slightly extended fight sequence between the 3 girls and a mob of robots. The girls reach and deactivate the bomb, but as they are prepping it for extraction, one last half dead robot slams Rocket against the wall, breaking her jet pack, and reactivates the bomb. This of course corresponds to the scene where the cook stabs Rocket. Snapping back into the dreamscape, Rocket forces the other girls to escape while she stays on the train when it explodes as it reaches the city.
There are some good things about the movie, like the afore mentioned hot girls running around with guns. For fans of the classic pinup girls, this movie is perfect, as even when the girls are just walking around, they all have the classic pinup girl lingerie on. And of course Jamie Chung gets a fair amount of screen time, and that is always a plus in my book, as she is probably the most attractive Asian girl i've ever seen (and i spent time over there).
The action as whole was really good as well, with the girls not just randomly shooting guns, but actually wielding them like they knew what they were doing, though the swordplay was significantly less believable.
On the negative, the whole shifting of realities at the beginning was jarring. I didnt, and still dont, see a real purpose behind it. It felt more like the writers had more than one movie in mind, and instead of making separate movies, combined them into one.
Regardless of which of the 2 realities you were watching, however, the movie was depressing. It is hard to balance hot girls and killer action, with such bleak and hopeless surroundings. And this movie fell well short of finding that balance.
All in all, I would rate this movie somewhere between a decent rental and a "maybe if it comes on cable". I felt the theatrical cut wasnt worth the price of a movie ticket, and i feel that the Extended Cut really isnt worth the $25 or so i paid for the Bluray set (even considering the 3 disks and digital copy)
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