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Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Surreal and deceptive
On first glance, this seems like shallow fan service about sexy women kicking monster butt video game style. Closer examination reveals a more interesting twisty narrative under the shiny genre gloss, especially in this extended edition.
I had bought the extended cut Blu-ray when it first came out, but it got lost lending it out. When I saw a section of steelbooks at Best Buy this one was on sale and I was concerned that the packaging didn't say which version was in the box and showed the shorter running time. But, when I got it home it did have the same extended version and features I remember.
About the actual movie, there's are about four fantasy sequences that are really must see action music videos. Very visually interesting and worth seeing on their own. The overall plot concerns a young girl who comes from a tragic abusive event to be placed in a mental ward. She then envisions a world in which she is held prisoner and trained to dance like other girls at a seedy club. To escape from the events there she envisions that she and her fellow inmates are part of an elite fighting unit in fantastical settings with zombie soldiers, orcs & dragons, giant samauri, and robots mixing genres and war machines.
The points that were problematic for people I know were the varying levels of reality and some subject matter. If you followed Inception and didn't get bogged down with questions, you'll handle the transitions here fine.
The second issue is the dark tone of the "reality" bookends, and the dancing club plot which is the majority of the screentime. Neither an old style mental hospital or the club is a pleasant place for the girls. While most of that plays out like prison break movie with them planning and gathering materials to effect their escape, there's certainly many references to forced activity and some violent events shown. Keep in mind, it did get a PG-13 as most of the battles involve non-human enemies. It's very much in line with Zack Snyder's other movies 300 and Watchmen as far as content and shares some of the aspects of Shutter island. My girlfriend really liked it, possibly more than I did.
If you're not easily offended I'd recommend seeing it at least once. If you are easily offended, I still recommend skipping to the fantasy action sequences.
