As unapologetic as it is grin-inducing.

Rating: 7/10 (2 July 2011)

I typically don't like big budget action/CGI movies - Transformers comes to mind - though I did like The Matrix (don't we all?). In fact, most movies I like are the dark, depressing, thoughtful kind (think Children of Men, Mulholland Drive, A Clockwork Orange). So this one was a surprise.
In your typical movie, it is the struggles and challenges that the characters face that make you want to keep watching. You want to see how they solve their problems, how they grow and change, and what becomes of them. Early in the movie, we are shown that the entire thing is a hallucination - it doesn't matter what happens to her, because shes about to get a lobotomy. This takes away that sense, and actually helps the movie be what it needs to be. I was entirely engaged in this movie not because I cared about the characters, but because of the sheer rate of awesome being poured into my eyeballs.
It does not apologize. It does not try to make sense. There are machine guns and orcs and dragons and Nazis and robots and samurais. There are scantily clad women. With swords. I liked the dark overtones in the "real" world, and I could not stop grinning for the entire thing.
If you know what you're getting into before you see it, you will enjoy it. You might even be surprised that there's a little bit more substance than you expected. It certainly is an unconventional "plot wrapper" to bundle up all that action, which makes it refreshing.
I thought the very end got a little too preachy... I mean, you just had a movie where women in leather underwear shoot goblins out of a helicopter, you don't get to ask philosophical questions at the end. But it doesn't matter, because the rest of it was enjoyment for enjoyment's sake. At one point I just started laughing because the movie was so absurd. I was giddy the entire time, and I don't think I'd have it any other way. It doesn't try to be anything but the most shameless, awesome, fantastic action movie you can possibly imagine, and it hit the nail on the head.