Tedious but pretty

Rating: 3/10 (16 December 2016)

I went into this fill fully expecting to enjoy myself, but right from the beginning I couldn't get into it. The beginning was really choppy, with no character set up or development for the protagonist -- we jump straight from her as a little girl to as an adult with nothing in between. (And never do we get any. The main antagonist has more of a character arc.) In the meantime, there are a lot of choppy cuts to different places we know and care nothing about.
This movie was dull, dull, dull. I never cared about any of the characters, the plot, when not chopped to pieces, was a combination of cliché, predictable, and idiotic, the dialogue was extremely forced, and the comic relief character had plenty of hackneyed one liners but no actual personality to support them. (Actually, the comic relief character was basically a self-aware version of Guardians of the Galaxy's Drax. That self-awareness and deliberate comic timing made the character basically a stand-up comedian, and not a particularly good one, instead of an actual character.) Of the dozens of jokes told, maybe three got a slight chuckle out of me -- and none of them had any real value.
I will say this: the visuals were stunning. There was also a brief sequence near the end I quite enjoyed. But that wasn't nearly enough to stop me from frequently wondering throughout the film when it was going to end and thinking extremely sarcastic thoughts when something uncommonly idiotic or cliché (usually both) occurred.
What a disappointment.