Mostly a bad taste teenager flick

For some reason I thought this would rise above standard teenage, bad-taste material through better jokes, better humor and plenty of gore to spice things up. But it hardly does so, it really is mostly bad taste teenager flick with perhaps a handful of laugh out moments.

Lacks in too many areas to make it work

The alternating scenes of war and hollow mass entertainment could and should have generated interesting contrast, but I found it too unfocused in what it was trying to say, it lacked style, dialogue was lengthy and some themes, like the negotiations for the movie salary were uninteresting to me.

Quality goes down too

Initially there is satisfactory Die-Hard-in-the-White-house vibe going on. But as it progresses, events become too ridiculous, cliched, tedious, patriotic and unfunny - making it tiresome to watch in the end. And then it commits suicide with slomo waving flag scene. Ugh.

The Chinese are starting to copy the wrong things

I can appreciate huge production values as well as the story, but the execution is chaotic, at times incomprehensible and sadly felt like the Chinese are now emulating the wrong Hollywood kitsch and cliches. It felt like a Chinese Armageddon clone.

Could have been fresh, but gave a headache instead

While I like the designs, FX and fresh vibe, I found it hard to get into the restless and erratic style of the movie, and didn't attach to any of the cartoonish, one-dimensional characters.