Sucked In

David Larsen is nonplussed to find he enjoys Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, in cinemas from April 7.

Sucker Punch: girl power!

Okay, this is embarrassing. I enjoyed Sucker Punch. This would be the film that people are walking out of in disgust, tweeting derisively about, and generally holding up as proof that Zack Snyder is a sad little fanboy with far too much technology at his disposal. I am uncool. I am a sad little fanboy. What can I tell you? For the right viewer, in the right mood, I dub Sucker Punch a fun evening out.

Snyder made 300, an astonishingly accurate screen recreation of Frank Miller’s delirious graphic novel about manly Spartans (Americans) standing up to the might of effete Persians (Iraqis). He made Watchmen, an even more astonishing screen recreation of a much more substantial and essentially unfilmable graphic novel, this time by the defining cult author of comics fandom, Alan Moore; that Snyder got so much of Moore’s book onto the screen while still utterly missing its core more or less proves the point that the venture was misconceived. Both films are technically masterful and only superficially coherent; both feature extravagant violence and a pervasive soft porn sensibility. These latter attributes could be dismissed as market-led pandering, but to me they smell of genuine and slightly tragic directorial excitement.

And now Sucker Punch, which is adapted from … nothing, actually, unless you count every single sci-f, fantasy or cult action movie of the last 10 years. It’s as derivative as a film can be without actually using someone else’s story, but it’s also an original work: a major statement, in fact, Snyder’s bid for geek auteur status. Briefly, and without giving too much away – no, sorry, impossible. It’s a give too much away or give nothing away story. But it involves girls in corsets, a brothel, an asylum, sword-play, gun-play, and a descent through layered realities into what may be a dream, may be another dimension, or may be something else. Some assembly required. Inception will be dancing into your mind right now, as well it should; likewise The Matrix. One sequence – spoiler warning; drop to the next paragraph if you care – involves orcs and a CGI dragon that must have Peter Jackson scratching his head, wondering how he’s going to do better when he gets up to filming Smaug. (Students of the cinematic dragon will notice that the bat-like motion of the creature as it climbs out of its lair recalls one of the few strong images from Rob Bowman’s Reign of Fire.)

The part I really can’t emphasise enough is the girls in corsets. With swords. And guns. If you were 12 years old, heterosexual, and male, and I suspect some significant part of Snyder answers to that description, this film would be a vision of erotic delights undreamed of. I would not like to debate its merits with an intelligent feminist, though once I trotted out the only available Snyder-defence – “Girl power!” – I don’t imagine said feminist would be able to say very much for laughing.

This isn’t reading much like a positive review, is it? But look: the film throws itself at you at 100km/h from the first frame, and gives you puzzles to solve. It moves fluidly, it looks every bit as good as you’d expect a Snyder film to look, and its excesses are ultimately quite innocuous. If you enjoy solving your way through a fantasy maze – fantasy in the broadest sense; within its “reality is mutable” frame, the film toys with four or five genres, martial arts, steampunk-inflected war films and science fiction among them – and if you’re willing to relax and go with it, it’s a great ride. It’s like the music video version of a gigantic computer game. It is, really, a children’s film, pitched at a bright early teen or near-teen, probably but not necessarily male. It’s bubblegum, and when the bubble pops, you go home. It’s Zack Snyder’s best film yet.

Cutting praise indeed.

SUCKER PUNCH, by Zack Snyder, now playing.