This review has no spoilers about anything that matters or is actually a surprise, but it may contain some specifics, so take that as you will.

Sucker Punch is a difficult movie to quantify. It's many different things at once, and at the same time it's not the movie you were expecting. It does a lot of things well, and a lot of things poorly, and after two hours you're left wondering if you actually have any idea about what just happened.

We've all seen the high energy trailer (which, I have to say, was awesome). Watching it, a person could clearly tell you exactly what the movie is about. It's about a girl, they would say, who is unfairly sent to a nuthouse where she and other hot crazy girls enter some sort of fantasy world they control in order to attempt an escape. Easy, except that you'd be wrong.

Within the first 20 minutes the viewer is left wondering what the hell is going on, as the movie goes a completely different direction. The nuthouse is not what you think, the fantasy world is not quite what was expected, and the plot becomes a convoluted mixture of Inception and Charlie's Angels. There's so much going on that it's difficult to break down, but let's give it a try.

The acting is nothing to write home about, though Oscar Isaac turns in a pretty good performance as Blue, nuthouse warden and underworld brothel owner. But chances are you won't be watching this movie for the acting, so let's move on.

The plot attempts to be a mind-bender, building expectations and then going in different directions, crafting multiple layers of story that become multiple layers of insanity until you're left unsure what's real and what's crazy and if it even matters. Ambitious as that sounds, they don't really pull it off. In the end it tries to do too much, and falls short. Rather than leaving you thinking about what might have really happened, the movie ends and viewers are left sharing glances and thinking, "Well, that was cool I guess?" with no real way to try to pick apart what really happened. You're left with a vague idea of how the multiple layers work, but no insight into why or how it resolved.

On top of that they throw in random dashes of gobbledegook concerning angels and self-empowerment that further confuse the mix, leaving you not only unable to figure it all out, but practically unwilling.

I'm not, however, saying that it's a bad movie. Reviews I've read have been lukewarm at best, but it's not a waste of your money.

The visuals of course are stunning, and the action sequences are finely tuned ballets of hell-yes, as long as you're not rolling your eyes at the fact that the protagonist is a cute-faced girl in an anime sailor outfit, complete with high heels, stockings, and pleated mini-skirt, fighting with a katana in one hand and a gun in the other. It's fluff, but you know it's fluff, and damned if it ain't beautiful, well-executed fluff.

The only flaw in this area was a World War I trench battle sequence with the girls fighting demon-Germans with automatic weapons and flying mechs, a sequence that went on for some time and was done entirely with a brutal shaky cam, completely destroying the effect of their choreography for several long, painful minutes. Nasty.

Beyond that, however, the fantasy world sequences are essentially Interdimensional Charlie's Angels. You have the aforementioned demon-Germans, you have a lava-moated gothic castle filled with monsters and dragons, and you have a futuristic killer-robot-filled train rigged to explode. As action goes, it's decent stuff, if sometimes overly cluttered. I would find myself injecting more story into these sequences in my mind than was actually there, imagining actual Interdimensional Charlie's Angels and the stories they might have.

But in the end the fantasy world and the action sequences are there to keep you entertained. Their relation to and effect on the actual plot of the movie are negligible, while at the same time contributing to the confused mash of storytelling devices.

In the final accounting, you probably won't understand it, but if you're going to see a cool movie with stylish action and cute girls you won't really care that much. Sit back and let it entertain you. When the credits roll you'll think for a few moments about what actually happened, realize there's no way to piece it all together, and you'll shrug and leave the theatre.

If I have to give it a score, we'll go with 7/10.

One final note: the movie has a lot of violence, but it's rated PG-13. There is very little blood in the movie -- the things they kill simply don't bleed. Considering that most of the movie takes place in a brothel, the sexual undertones are relatively minimal. There is some mysogeny and some violence toward women that gets a little unnerving, and there are some pretty bad things that happen but the worst of it is off-screen. I feel it's really riding the line to get its PG-13 rating, so keep that in mind if you're a parent.