The special effects are good. There is a decent story there. But, when you get down to it, it is little more than a war movie with interminable firefights. Also, some of the typical cinematic techniques, like switching quickly from "scene to scene", don't work well with 3D. The backgrounds on 3D are very blurry (to create the depth of field) but by the time your eye finds the main focus point, the film has moved on - leaving the feeling of "what was that?". The movie obviously attempt to appeal to virtually everyone - those looking for something "morally uplifting" and those wanting a good action flick. I'm guessing it went on so long partly because of that and partly because they spent so much money on the special effects that they could not bear not to use them. They made a movie with much potential quite boring. I think I'll skip the obviously forthcoming sequel.