Now it’s during her first forced dance session that Babydoll (and all the girls have cute little monikers like “Rocket” or “Sweet Pea” applied to them in lieu of real names) summons the “alternative reality” that will lead to her freedom, but the internal logic of the film is this: Babydoll’s dancing in the "real world" (which runs concurrently with her action set piece fantasies) is supposedly so erotic and so entrancing that no man can take his eyes off of her. And at the beginning of that fantasy sequence, she encounters Scott Glenn in a thankless role as the mystical mentor, who gives her the list of the five items she needs to escape, setting in place the whole film’s misguided m.o.  -- that Babydoll needs to do her little sexy-time dance as a distraction while her new friends steal the various items they need from her hypnotized marks (Ironically, the fantasies Babydoll is projecting in her mind, the ones being used to seducing said chumps, are so distinctly, unremittingly male). Surely Nina Sayers wasn’t envisioning the ultimate MMORG wet dream when she was seducing her teacher in BLACK SWAN, right?

What makes it all truly laughable is that all the film ever shows us are the big fantasy scenes, and never the “actual” dancing. Given the complexity and actions within the fantasies (usually running, jumping, stabbing and shooting), what does her dancing really look like? Is she pantomiming what she’s going though? Is her audience not entranced, but bewildered and bemused by the train wreck before them, like the type of sick reverie induced by women’s bodybuilding?

The actors do their best, but there’s only so much from them to work with outside of the physical requirements of being action heroes (with which they all acquit themselves nicely with a little assist from digital doubles and wire work). With her delicate porcelain face and wide set eyes, Emily Browning fits her character’s name to a T (no wonder Stephanie Meyer once envisioned her for Bella while writing the Twilight novels), but her arc as a whole isn’t convincing or even moving, because she doesn’t really stand for any ideal more definable or complex than “You go girl”.

As the sister duo, Jena Malone and Abbie Cornish get the best of limited material, but are unfortunately undercut by a lack of crucial back-story and a bungled resolution to their storyline (especially during the “twist” ending).  Maybe some of that was contained in the deleted musical numbers...

Based on its various trailers, I expected SUCKER PUNCH to look great and have a terrible story, and I was not very disappointed in those respects. Say what you will about Spielberg’s fetishes, but not being able to emotionally move an audience has never been a issue for him (in fact, he’s been accused of being all too good at that). That’s one fetish Snyder’s has yet to regurgitate successfully -- perhaps he’ll dream about it one day. That and more chicks with guns.

Grade: C-