What is Sucker Punch about?

Answer 1

In the 1960s,[6] a 20-year-old girl[6] nicknamed "Babydoll" (Emily Browning) is institutionalized by her stepfather at the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane after she is blamed for the death of her younger sister. Blue Jones (Oscar Isaac), one of the asylum's orderlies, is bribed by Babydoll's stepfather into forging the signature of the asylum's psychiatrist, Dr. Vera Gorski (Carla Gugino), to have Babydoll lobotomized, so she can neither inform the authorities of the true circumstances leading to her sister's death, nor reclaim her recently deceased mother's fortune. As Babydoll enters the institution, she takes note of several items that would be integral if she were to attempt an escape.

In the days prior to her lobotomy, Babydoll retreats to a fantasy world in which she is newly arrived in a brothel owned by Blue, whom she envisions as amobster. She befriends four other dancers-Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone), and Rocket's older sister, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Dr. Gorski is envisioned as the girls' dance instructor, informing Babydoll that her virginity would be sold to a client known as "The High Roller" (Jon Hamm). Gorski encourages Babydoll to perform an erotic dance, during which Babydoll fantasizes that she was in feudal Japan, meeting the Wise Man (Scott Glenn). After expressing her desire to "escape," the Wise Man presents Babydoll with weapons. He tells her that she would need to collect five items for an escape: a map, fire, a knife, a key and a fifth, unrevealed item that would require "great sacrifice". Before parting ways, he instructs her to "defend herself," and she is confronted by three demonic samurai, which she defeats. As her fantasy ends, she finds herself back in the brothel, her dance impressing Blue and other onlookers.

Inspired by her vision of the Wise Man, Babydoll convinces her friends to prepare an escape. She plots to use her dances as a distraction whilst the other girls obtain the necessary tools. During each of her dances, she imagines adventurous events that mirror the secretly ongoing efforts. These episodes include infiltrating a bunker protected by steam-powered World War I German soldiers to gain the map (mirrored by Sweet Pea entering Blue's office and copying a map of the brothel); storming an orc-infested castle to cut two fire-producing crystals from the throat of a baby dragon (mirrored by Amber stealing a lighter from the breast-pocket of a client); and boarding a train and combating mechanized guards to disarm a bomb (mirrored by Sweet Pea stealing a kitchen knife from the belt of the brothel's cook). During the last of these fantasies, Rocket sacrifices herself to save Sweet Pea and is killed when the bomb detonates, which is paralleled in a deadly fight between the cook and the other girls in the brothel.

Blue, suspecting that the girls are plotting something, overhears Blondie relaying Babydoll's plan to Madam Gorski. After discovering the gruesome scene around the cook in the kitchen, he has the grieving Sweet Pea locked in a utility closet and confronts the remainder of the girls backstage, proceeding to "make examples" by shooting Amber and Blondie. He then attempts to rape Babydoll, but she stabs him with the kitchen knife and steals his master key. Babydoll frees Sweet Pea, and the two start a fire so that, as a result of the fire alarm, the institution's checkpoint doors unlock. The two manage to escape into the courtyard, where they find the front gate to be blocked by henchmen. Babydoll deduces that the fifth item needed for the escape is in fact herself, and that her sacrifice is needed to complete Sweet Pea's story. She distracts the guards, allowing Sweet Pea to slip out.

The scene cuts back to the asylum in which the surgeon (Hamm) has just performed Babydoll's lobotomy. Hamm is perturbed by Babydoll's expression and starts to question Dr. Gorski as to why she authorized the procedure. It is also revealed that the happenings in the her dream world also happened in the hospital (stabbing an orderly, starting a fire and helping another girl escape) Gorski realizes that Blue has forged her signature, and summons the police, who apprehend Blue as he assaults a catatonic Babydoll.

Sweet Pea is stopped by police at a bus station, but rescued by the bus driver, who misleads the police and is revealed to be the Wise Man from Babydoll's fantasies.