“Sucker Punch” is the first purely original work from director Zach Snyder, known best for his adaptions of graphic novels “300” and “Watchmen.” The former alienated many by being too stupid, and the latter by being too smart.

”Sucker Punch” lacks substance

On the intelligence scale, “Sucker Punch” falls closer to 300 — but just because a movie is stupid doesn’t necessarily mean it’s boring.

“Sucker Punch” is the story of a girl (Emily Browning) who, when trying to defend herself from her vile stepfather’s assaults, accidentally kills her younger sister. As a result, she is sent to a mental asylum.

Like all mental asylums found in Hollywood films, it is a disturbing, disgusting place run by corrupt orderlies. Rather than dealing directly with the horrors around her, she recesses deeply into hallucinations created by her own mind, envisioning the asylum as a 1920s-esque brothel where she and the other female inmates are the merchandise.

You might question why she would create a fantasy world that is arguably just as bad as her real world, but it isn’t the first absurdity present in this film. Now dubbed Baby Doll, the girl recesses once again into a deeper fantasy world, where she meets a wise man who, in an unfathomable act of creativity, is referred to as Wise Man in the credits.

He sends her on a quest for five objects that will aid her in escaping from the brothel/mental hospital. The remainder of the film follows Baby Doll and her fellow inmates through a series of hallucinations within hallucinations, all representing the quest for these items in the form of over-the-top action scenes.

Levels of consciousness are not comparable to “Inception”

Comparisons to last year’s “Inception” are inevitable with the differing levels of consciousness at work, but “Sucker Punch” isn’t nearly as clever or refined with the subject matter.

The hallucinations, rather than functioning as integral parts of the story, are almost completely arbitrary in nature. Why is it necessary that the film function in the brothel-within-a-mental-facility context, when setting it in either location would have suited the narrative in and of itself?

The dual setting does nothing more than give the unconvincing illusion of depth, like a man who tries to make himself sound smarter by babbling five-syllable words that he memorized from a thesaurus.

The bloated settings get little help from the script, which isn’t badly written so much as it is underwritten. Baby Doll and her cohorts are written two-dimensionally at best, and as cardboard cutouts at their worst. The villains exist solely to be villainous, and the heroes exist solely to be heroic.

And yet, the mountain of previously listed flaws does not keep the film from being compelling, exciting and downright satisfying.

Film’s frames are aesthetically pleasing

Snyder may be the most visually engaging filmmaker of our time and this film is a perfect demonstration of this. Nearly every shot is simply gorgeous, as if every frame were an individually taken photo.

This film came at the fairly high price tag of $82 million, but it looks as though it cost much, much more.

Action scenes are the substance of the film

The randomness of the action scenes might be another flaw in the story, but they allow the film to pack an aesthetic punch, making up for the narrative.

The action is frantic, but controlled. The editing is quick, but never falls in the modern trap of making the sequences impossible to follow. It is in these sequences that the film truly shines.
In crafting the deadly worlds that the girls enter, Snyder combines his visual eye with the refreshing creativity of a child playing with action figures, shoving elements in only because he knows how cool they will look.

Baby Doll, wielding a katana, fights her way through giant chain-gun wielding samurai statues, steam-powered cyborg zombie Germans, and — well, to say any more would just spoil the fun.
The worst thing about this film is that it wasn’t a video game.

“Sucker Punch” is style over substance, through and through; it is oh-so-stylish it is.

It’s exciting, entertaining and one-of-a-kind. See it on a Saturday night with your mind closed off and your eyes wide open.