This is a cool movie that is only cool and nothing else and if anything it tries too hard to be cool thus becoming uncool, when you push every cliche too far you run the risk of jumping the shark with what you're trying to pull off.  It's a bunch of girls who wanna get out of an insane asylum so one of them imagines fantastical battle scenes that mirror what happens in reality; going with the world within a world within a world storyline, each more fantasy. This movie was an excuse to be a 13-21 year old nerd's fantasy romp. Lots of niche pulp stories are thrown in from steampunk zombies to fighting dragons with a WW2 bomber. It's all very tongue in cheek and that tends to take away from it all. The "real world" horrors are never that touching and you never have empathy for any characters ups or downs because the whole thing is so comic booky that you can never allow it to be anything more than eyecandy. The men are evil violent womanizers and the women are victim pinup models with way to much makeup on. As far as the eyecandy goes Zach Snyder did a great job, as far as underlining metaphors and the meaning of the film it failed completely. If you're gonna push the violence against women angle you need it all out pulp comic or take it seriously, this doesn't pull off either quite right. As far the eyecandy, the fight scenes were awesome but anyone who plays modern videogames sees the same thing all the time. Had this been released 5 years ago it would make a much bigger splash but the explosions aren't gonna be enough nowadays. The fast parts are a bit too fast, the slow motion a bit too slow, and an over reliance on guns makes the fight scenes less interesting without good choreographed fights.  Give me the same movie without the abused woman angle and it would be great, give me the same movie where the heroines aren't degraded but are real heroes and it would be great, aim for the middle and it's all flash with it's story undermined. It would make a much better graphic novel than a movie but it's still good to see so many random nerdy niche elements put together in a movie. (.79)

- J Paige