Sucker Punch received mostly unfavorable reviews, while a small number of critics described it, by way of contrast, as a very unusual reflective work that only apparently is based on certain common stereotypes of popular culture.[77] Rotten Tomatoes reports that only 22% of 182 critics have given the film positive reviews.[78] As of 6 April 2011, the film holds a 33 out of 100 on Metacritic, signifying "Generally Unfavorable" reviews among 29 critics.[79] Although Snyder himself had claimed that he wanted the film to "be a cool story and not just like a video game where you’re just loose and going nuts,"[71] some critics compared the film unfavorably to a video game in their reviews. Richard Roeper gave the film a D, saying that it "proves a movie can be loud, action-packed and filled with beautiful young women—and still bore you to tears."[80] The Orlando Sentinel gave the movie one out of four stars calling it "an unerotic unthrilling erotic thriller in the video game mold".[81] The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin wrote, "with its quests to retrieve magical totems, clearly demarcated levels, and non-stop action, Snyder’s clattering concoction sometimes feels less like a movie than an extended, elaborate trailer for its redundant videogame adaptation."[82]
Sucker Punch has also drawn criticism for its depiction of women. Critics have described the movie as misogynistic and others have expressed concern over its treatment of sexual violence. Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune stated that "Zack Snyder must have known in preproduction that his greasy collection of near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale wasn't going to satisfy anyone but himself."[83] St. Petersburg Times critic Steve Persall found that the most offensive fact about the film was that it "suggests that all this objectification of women makes them stronger. It's supposed to be reassuring that men who beat, berate, molest and kill these women will get what's coming to them. Just wait, Snyder says, but in the meantime here's another femininity insult to keep you occupied."[84] A.O. Scott of The New York Times described the film as a "fantasia of misogyny" that pretends to be a "feminist fable of empowerment" and found that the film's treatment of sexual violence was problematic.[85] Peter Debruge of Variety argued that the film is "misleadingly positioned as female empowerment despite clearly having been hatched as fantasy fodder for 13-year-old guys" and that the fact that the young women in the movie are "under constant threat of being raped or murdered" makes the film "highly inappropriate for young viewers."[86] However, Betsy Sharkey of The Los Angeles Times suggested that the film neither objectifies nor empowers women and that instead it is a "wonderfully wild provocation — an imperfect, overlong, intemperate and utterly absorbing romp through the id that I wouldn't have missed for the world."[87] Meanwhile, in a retrospective article about the critical reception of Sucker Punch, James MacDowell of Alternate Takes has claimed that the film is "one of the most widely misunderstood films of recent years", arguing that it does not in fact aim to offer female 'empowerment', but is instead "a deeply pessimistic analysis of female oppression" because it makes clear that, "just as men organize the dances, so do they control the terms of the fight scenes; in neither do the women have true agency, only an illusion of it."[77]
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