Zack Snyder pushes the envelope with his highly stylised, bold and daring action-fantasy Sucker Punch. Babydoll (Emily Browning) and her warriors - Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) - are locked up in a mental institution.
They must find five items if they want to escape: a map, fire, a knife, a key and a mystery item only Babydoll can unlock. And they must do it quickly to save Babydoll from a scheduled lobotomy.
Sucker Punch has possibly one of the most intense and tightly edited opening sequences of any film in recent memory. Those three minutes also give us enough back-story to establish the narrative - set against the blasting sound of Browning's cover of the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).
The soundtrack is phenomenal, and includes genres from pop and alternative, to rock and techno, adding another level of coolness.
Snyder deserves kudos for being brave enough to experiment. He toys with extreme close-ups, slow-mo and mind-blowing CGI. It's like the iconic battle movie 300, featuring Spartan warriors - only with less testosterone.
The plot is rather predictable, but Sucker Punch is head and shoulders above other girl-action flicks. Boy, those feisty group of girl warriors do give guys a real run for their money.