I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. It was gorgeous to look at. I loved the visual style and character design. The blood particle effects were cool. But every battle is in slow motion. And by the time I accepted this as the visual language of the film, it was over. It was so overused that it was no longer a special effect. I mean, it still looked really cool, but it wore thin.

I didn’t expect as many quiet moments as there were. I expected a brief intro which ramped up to non-stop carnage. Instead the film is broken up into two storylines: the battle and life back home, which I will dub Rome Lite. If you’ve seen Rome, then you’ll get it.

Although it was not a slavish adaptation of the graphic novel a la Sin City, it did adhere fairly closely to some of the most memorable panels. I had seen all of the intense scenes from the trailer so many times that by the time they happened in the context of the film, they were stripped of power.

Overall, it was gorgeous, but diluted. It became a sprawling epic film for tiny slices of time and then shrunk down to very small moments. It was worth seeing, but it was not the mind-blowing action film I was expecting.

I went to add this to the top ten list, but realized that it would be #11. I enjoyed The Host more.