The plot has been cited as the biggest downfall of this movie, but it’s still an alright film. The movie is far from great but it is still able to keep viewers entertained.
It is an interesting film but it is also a seizure-inducing mess. Viewers will only waste time trying find a deeper meaning to this film.At best it can be described as mindless fun, with a heavy emphasis on mindless.
Faced with the death of her mother and the looming glare of her abusive stepfather, Babydoll, played by Emily Browning, attempts to save herself and her younger sister; however, her best intentions end in tragedy. Babydoll then ends up in a mental hospital where she is forced to dance for patrons.
Babydoll settles in at the sketchy Lennox House, and is fast-tracked for a mind-erasing transorbital lobotomy. Mere seconds from her doctor-prescribed ret-con, her mind flashes back to the events of the past five days. Her memories are transformed into an elaborate fantasy, the last one she will ever have.
When Babydoll starts to dance, she is transported to another scene where the fighting begins. These “fantasies within a fantasy” scenes make up most of the movie. The fantasy represents the dance; the more violent and twisted the scene, the dirtier the dance.
Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) join Babydoll in her “fantasies”. They all do a pretty good job in acting, but seeing Vanessa Hudgens in racy costumes is a new sight. Hudgens still looks like a teenager, but she handled the role with an unexpected maturity.
The fantasy scenes are fairly impressive, but there is nothing holding them together, and there is never any real sense of danger or accomplishment in their completion. Thanks to their costumes, at least, guys won’t be that bored watching this movie.
By the end of the movie, most people will walk out of the theater wondering if they missed something—some key element that was deeply buried in the world of the film. Maybe a hidden metaphor, or some allegory.
But the movie is just a superficial and soulless two-hour music video.
