Sucker Punch to my wallet….

Those waiting for Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), got what they wanted if  ALL they wanted was young, rosy cheeked, bare-thighed ladies flitting about precariously from helicopters, to dragons, to large, rock comprised samurais, with total disregard for the number of upskirts and occasional moans during combat.

A lackluster, confusing plot with fabulous effects, burlesque costumes, badass stares, and molesting, rapist antagonists you just want to stab so they'll shut up. All that and my first thought when I got up was:

"What makeup did they use!?"

Can you tell I wasn't impressed by the movie?

The story starts off with Baby Doll (Emily Browning) who is obviously in a very awful position, what with her mother dying and in trying to save her and her sibling from a sexual-predator-stepfather (Gerard Plunkett), accidentally kills her sister.
She's institutionalized, shown around, stepfather makes a deal with a creepy orderly named Blue (Oscar Isaac) to have Baby lobotomized, and then without warning, the audience is launched to a brothel-like environment where Blue is the mustachioed pimp and Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino) is the girl's choreographer.
Baby initiates a plan with an assortment of girls including Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens).

Baby is discovered to have some amazing dancing power that renders men powerless (dancing that the audience never gets to see because as soon as she starts swaying her hips, the scene jumps to some war-like action scenario with a goal of acquiring an item).
in the end, only one of the girls survives to escape while Baby is left behind. It then swoops back into a
it-was-all-in-her-head-but-everything-really-happened-just-in-reality ending with Browning's character lobotomized, then led by a now very realistic, de-mustached, stabbed Blue, to a room where the orderlies have raped girls before her. After a kiss, but before he can molest the now permanently clueless Baby, authorities arrive, arrest the rapists and we are left depressed and confused.

When the lights went up (a little too soon before the end of the movie) grumbles of disappointment echoed throughout the theater.

My Facebook status a few minutes into the movie:

It is the disappointing truth. If it doesn't explode or show a little ass it doesn't sell. 

Carla Gugino is always a pleasure to watch on screen, and I think her acting made up for the blandness in ALMOST every scene. The actresses were all very lovely but their acting left something to be desired.

Rape, molestation, topics that make women sometimes want to empower themselves, show the world that they are not objects, not toys….

Yeah alright, it'd be awesome to fight in a Lord of the Rings type situation and repel off buildings without breaking a sweat, but this movie was anything BUT empowering.

You make women seem like toys and objects, if you have to show thigh, ass, and tits and blow things up around them to get your sales up.

As a journalist, I know that sex can sell almost anything. That's the standard for almost all action flicks nowadays, but for such subject matter….I wanted something more.

“It’s sort of asking people to not base their ideas about women on the looks and what sort of physical stereotypes they fit into. It’s showing also that females can be unbelievably tough and sexy at the same time, if that’s what they choose to be.” -Emily Browning

What was that about stereotypes?

OK So i'm done whining, I will say that the soundtrack was BEYOND EPIC.

Amazing covers from "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" -Emily Browning to "White Rabbit" -Emiliana Torrini.  The editors did a great job of music punctuating pivotal action moments. I'm definitely downloading it.

-Sabina Gallier