I was intrigued by the effusive praise that so many ... heaped upon this movie, and I thought to myself "Wow, this sounds incredible - I'd better check this out."However, this film ...It's way, way too overlong. It comes in at about 2 hrs 20 mins, yet so much of the movie is painfully repetitious that this could easily have been trimmed to 80 mins. The American voice-overs are AWFUL. Minnie Driver is passable, but every other actor makes it sound like a school play. They're hammier than a side of pig. I can't believe anime has evolved so little since "Akira".