Sucker Punch is the new, everything else is the old. You will read varying criticism of Sucker Punch and most older critics will try to attach some previous film to its likeness, like the prototype steampunk Brazil (the femme protag of SP fights a giant samurai warrior and ends up in a chair before an interrogator), or Drop Dead Fred (Scott Glenn plays the imaginary friend in SP), or even Tank Girl. Sucker Punch is nothing if not empowering.

Zack Snyder has fashioned a movie that stands alone. Even though its look suggests that SP was inspired by a video game or a graphic novel the opposite is true. The actresses are new and unknown except for the uninitiated. Abbie Cornish, Emily Browning and Jena Malone do overtime as innocent women prosecuted and abused at an insane asylum cum bordello. Glenn and John Hamm play the only rational men parts although a character named Blue (Oscar Isaac) has the most obnoxious personality of any of the characters in the moth eaten, wormhole universe of Sucker Punch. Carla Gugino, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung also figure in the equation.

The story operates on more than one level. We witness Sucker Punch through the eyes of Baby Doll (Browning) and each part of her psyche is experiencing a different story (Id, Ego, and Super Ego) that we see as a separate narrative stream. When Baby Doll dances SP launches into hyperdrive and treats the audience to new versions of classic songs (an acid house White Rabbit, a gaga-esque Tomorrow Never Knows) or just classic tunes themselves amped up by the performers in the movie (Love is the Drug or Sweet Dreams).

Snyder, a golden boy at Warner Brother currently helming their 2024 tentpole reboot of Superman, has used his clout to make a movie so perverse and yet personal that it redefines the concept of the PG-13 cameltoe. If only every studio had a Zach Snyder waiting in the wings. While Browning is the lead, Cornish steals the show. I would suggest those who haven’t seen Limitless (with Cornish) see Sucker Punch and then walk into the next theater playing Limitless and make it a Cornish weekend.

- Michael Bergeron