Man, this is the movie that made me swear off going to the cinema except for truly special occasions. Don't get me wrong, this movie LOOKED amazing on the big screena nd in 3D, but it was also a total parts movie and gave me so many ideas that I was miserable in the theater, I wanted to pause the movie and take down notes and screencaps. Meaning I had to suffer through the flick again when it came out on blu-ray (though the blu-ray release and the version on HBO have terrible picture quality, the explosions in the "superman" sequence become so fragmented and poinillized it feels like a Tron Legacy effect).
The movie also kept making me think of two other properties: Stargate and Dune. All the beautiful, ornate spaceships and costumes... totally Dune in the best possible way. Much like the actual movie Dune used sets and material built for an entirely different version of that movie, this felt like they were using pre-viz from a Dune remake and just filming their movie with it. And Stargate? Well, well, the Aegis ship in particular reminded me of the ships from SG-1 (when they dock and Mila "beams" down, my mind put in the "whomping ring" effect from said flick), and the aliens being treated as Gods and crushing mankind underfoot? Totally Stargate.
But oh man, the big issue with the movie for me? How uneven the approach was. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but do you remember the original Matrix? Every scene, from an action set piece or a visual effect to two people sitting in a room talking, was treated with the same amount of care and attention to detail. Every scene became watchable and compelling because they made every scene watchable and compelling, even if what they were saying made no sense. This movie? There were intensively done scenes, but then there are dialogue scenes (like after Mila gets her hand stamped) or the bee talk where it feels so pedestrian, something any director could do, that it's a pain to watch, and worse, you started thinking ahead. I knew the exact second the wall was going to blow out behind Sean Bean. That's REAL bad, that destroys your immersion in a flick.
And sh1t was just too complicated. I get that they were going for a big "all humanity is connected and life is sacred and greed can destroy it" thing going on, but the movie should be simple. It's a fairy tale with sci fi elements. It's the Princess Bride meets Star Wars. One of the lowest rungs of people on Earth is secretly it's owner and protector, a twist on the Princess and the Pauper. Every time they get away from that, or try to make it more complex or push their "message," it gets needlessly convoluted. They didn't need to keep going into the DNA resurrection. They didn't need all the family members, that was complicated and gratuitous. It should have been simple. Like The Matrix. For all the complex theories and twists on humanity that people started to obsess about in the original Matrix, the narrative was incredibly straightforward.