Possibly because after a year of COVID, I’m (apparently) sympathetic to Chris Pratt’s deranged and psychotic and messed up behaviour here, I didn’t think this was as bad as everybody else did.
Honestly, it’s cinematic junk food. Not sure what everybody expected here.
They did botch the ending though. I can think of a million endings that I would prefer to what they chose.
Edit: also, the film flirts (no pun intended) with way too many themes and never picks a real direction. The romance feels empty and meaningless compared to the backdrop of what could have been (technology critique, capitalism catastrophe, etc, etc). Star power here is hard to ignore and I still liked the film, as a fantasy, but this is the furthest thing from hard sci-fi. As fantasy, this is simultaneously enjoyable and problematic.