Having just finished watching this, and then reading the other reviews I am at a loss for all the fuss about the sub par special effects. They looked a lot better than the 250 million dollar Oz the Great and Powerful, which felt sadly fake in near every scene, and both movies are fantasy, so I saw nothing lacking in the special effects. The dialog in the opening of the movie for about 20 minutes is really just not great, but being a fan of Nightwish I stayed with the movie, and was glad to do so by the halfway mark. The other reviewers pointed out the homages so I will skip them. Coming at this film after seeing Tommy, The Wall, and Harry Potter films, I was not left in the lurch as many were about what was going on. I knew darn well I was seeing symbolism at every turn and was enthralled by it. The scene where the generations overlap in their pain was pure brilliance on the screen. I had never seen optics used in such a way to juxtapose two time periods and create a mood while still piling on the symbolism to even deeper meanings. The skipped words between characters in certain scenes is tasty for those who like being appreciated by the filmmakers to be smart enough to recognize what they were - like with the combination. It may not start out tidy but it gets that way. I was surprised by the idea that it was a movie with music and not a music movie. I was under the impression it would be more like Tommy than The Wall, it's not. The brief appearances by the band did leave me wanting way more, because I am fan of the group, but it didn't hurt the movie a bit. If only the beginning was as good as the rest I would give it all the stars, but it does open so poorly it would not be honest.
