It’s fun to joke about the “visually stunning” cliche. But in this case it is actually a fair description, especially once you find out that the budget was only $80M.
On a cerebral level, when watching the movie I knew that basically every shot to be a special effect shot. But the only way I could know which parts were special effects was by what would be impossible to do in the real world, not because anything looked off in any way. The renders and composites were just flawless, it might be the most impressive CGI work I’ve ever seen in any movie.
My guess at the budget was $150M, because I thought that was the absolute maximum anyone would give Edwards, not because I thought this movie could be made with that budget. Finding out that the real budget was just half of that was genuinely shocking. I just don’t understand it. Either the special effects house has some magic new tech and we’re about to enter a new age of film making, or… I don’t actually know what the alternative is.
It’s a shame about the script though. It’s an absolute garbage fire. There’s some superficially decent world-building, but it falls apart the moment you concentrate. The plot, the characters, or the dialogue don’t work even superficially.
Would I recommend this? Even though this is likely to be in the bottom 1/3rd of my 2023 movie ranking, I might still conditionally recommend it. Not because it’s a good or even decent movie, but because the visuals really do deserve a big screen in the way few movies do. And the visuals and style are all the movie has going for it. It really won’t be the same watching it from an iPad.