• I'm not gonna bury the lede here: they used the Home Run Bat / Luigi taunt / Jigglypuff rest sound in this. Why is nobody talking about this.

• Really, this finally feels like the "Internet culture of the 2000s" bonanza we've been overdue for. It's like they put Stephen Chow*, Edgar Wright, Kaufman/Gondry/Jonze, the Wachowskis, and that one Clouzot lighting effect in a blender** and out popped this. It's a lot.

• It's kind of a shame that the action direction is a bit of a clusterfuck - the shots just don't fit together all that well. For all their maximalism, the Daniels are way better at staging dialogue.

• There's what, eleven whole acts in this? Not to be the curmudgeonly old man here, but if ever there was a script that could have benefited from consolidated story beats it's this one. Hoo-eeeeey does this get long in the tooth. Make this a tight 100 minutes, and then ya got yourself a picture! That's what I always say.

• The last hour of this feels like the encore at a Bruce Springsteen concert: every single beat is pitched like it's the big grand climax, and they just keep piling on climax upon climax until you're completely worn out and it's been four hours already and the venue tech crew is getting visibly annoyed because it's midnight and they've been at it for four hours.

• The fact that I'm a decrepit curmudgeon aside, this really is a pretty fun and refreshing little explosion of ideas and ambition. It's not deep or nuanced, but I don't think it's pretending to be.

• It's miraculous that this is legible at all, and I don't mean that in a backhanded way. Genuinely impressive.

• The aspect ratio semiotics here are basically indistinguishable from SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD: wide means cinematic, like in those video games.

• The degree to which all the wacky maximalism is just here to tell an 'emotional story' or whether the 'feels' are just there to make the Daniels' absurd 2000s internet humor maximalism more digestible to mainstream audiences is an interesting question, but I strongly suspect it's the latter. And good on them for that.

• I was dead certain they used the Portsmouth Sinfonia's version of Also Sprach Zarathustra, but apparently it was a recording by the Polish National Symphony. Someone explain this ASAP. This must be resolved. All life depends on it. Did they hire the Polish National Symphony to do their best Portsmouth Sinfonia impression???

*To a degree, in fact, that I'm kind of surprised not to see his name mentioned constantly in reference to this. The specific DIY-absurdist sensibility here is everywhere in SHAOLIN SOCCER and KUNG-FU HUSTLE.
**It's worth noting that there are references to Wong Kar-Wai, King Hu, Brad Bird, a half-dozen other directors whom I'm forgetting, and, uh, Salad Fingers (I guess?), but those are less central to the DNA of this thing.