ADD movie for the fragile-minded teenagers of the world...life is so unfair.

Rating: 3/10 (28 March 2011)

This movie is quite the polarizing model for movie-fans. I guess it's made for teenagers who haven't seen this stuff before and don't appreciate the music that was lazily covered in some sad-sap way. Honestly, I thought there were some scenes that really showed how well the imagery of the special effects worked, but you can tell that the film-effects team was just working on montages to try and get them into a movie, no matter what the story was.
Right from the beginning, the movie feels incredibly jarring. You're forced to watch a super-stylized music-video of a movie for the next 109 minutes complete with mediocre covers of great songs and one actual song (Bjork's "Army Of Me" with its painfully obvious lyrics of self- discovery linking to the story). Emily Browning looks like a girl with a stomach-ache throughout the entire movie, possibly because the noxious eye-glue on those ridiculous fake eyelashes was getting to her brain.
Her looks aside, I LOVED the fight sequence between her and 3 mystical samurai warriors, even though one was packing a minigun and couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Synder's slow-down/speed-up effects are so annoying, it actually makes me want to go watch "Crank," a movie I loathe, but at least the effects serve a purpose in that movie.
This one honestly felt from beginning to end how I felt in high school, all gothed out and emo, but now that I'm 30 years old, it's looks painfully pathetic and boring. I honestly yawned 6 times in the last 30 minutes of the movie, even during some action sequences, partly because I already understood what the crux of her problem was but didn't really care. Was the movie all that deep? Depends how old you are, and a good movie shouldn't depend on that crutch.
And as Bjork's song is shoved down your throat one last time as you walk out during the credits, all you hear are the cries of fake confidence: "If any of you complain once more, you'll meet an army of me." Well, I'll take that bet. See it in the theaters or IMAX for the visuals, but try not to fall asleep.