The official description of the movie states: "Sucker Punch is an epic action fantasy that takes us into the vivid imagination of a young girl whose dream world provides the ultimate escape from her darker reality." And based on the new trailer, it appears that the main character -- and four of her friends at the mental institution where she's imprisoned -- initially use these imaginary scenarios to escape the horror of having to dance seductively in the hospital's burlesque show. (Thing People on the Internet Love #1.) But ultimately, they'll use their imaginations to accomplish the real-world task of acquiring five items that will help them escape. So when the girls are fighting a horde of robots (Thing #2), or a squad of steampunk soldiers (#3), or a dragon (#4), or a giant samurai demon (#5), they're really fighting hospital staff in order to get a map, a lighter, a knife, a key and something else that even Scott Glenn doesn't know about. (And Scott Glenn knows everything.) That doesn't sound that different from the Inception guys entering a dream world to retrieve a secret code or sensitive information that's worth money on the outside, and these girls do it in schoolgirl/hooker outfits (#6/7) and without the aid of a fancy dream-linking device.

There also seems be a dangerous element to these dream worlds, as in Inception: "Unrestrained by the boundaries of time and place, she is free to go where her mind takes her, but her incredible adventures blur the lines between what's real and what is imaginary... with potentially tragic consequences." In Inception, getting killed in a dream meant you could end up in unformed dream space, living a life that you don't realize is fake. So maybe the dream worlds of Sucker Punch, with their exciting role-playing games (#8) and giant, bunny-faced exo-suits (#9/10) can become too addictive to leave, causing the girls to break with reality? Makes sense. The snowbound Halo level that wrapped up Inception looked hella fun, and the worlds Snyder has created here look even more like awesome video games come to life. As long as we had a samurai sword and were allowed to kill a lot of Nazis, we'd probably be sad to wake up, too.

Check out the trailer below, then see the other movies Snyder may be paying homage to.

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