Not that good?

I just don't expect to see terrible Hollywood-esque clichés like making the US military the incompetent, behind the scenes villain in a high concept anime film-lazy

If there was some kind of decipherable criticism being levied at US foreign policy than I might have some appreciation for this choice (assuming he considered and acknowledged the complexities of America's global position). As it is, the movie doesn't appear to be saying anything in particular, and thus, from the audience's perspective, it just comes off like Mamoru arbitrarily chose to put the US military in that roll because... he dislikes the US military? he dislikes Japanese US relations? he doesn't think young Japanese should travel to America? he thinks the US might actually do something so random and strange? He could have chosen a more politically neutral secondary antagonist (international cyber-terrorists, a large criminal organization) without ruining the boring and wholesome message about family and real human connections, but no, he made a clear point to make it the US government yet never even hints at why. Therefore, I found it confusing and offensive.

Yeah. I think the stupidest part was when that douchy cousin stole all the ice that they were using to SAVE THE WORLD, so he could cool a rotting corpse. The OZ scenes were pretty cool though. King Kazma rocked. Too bad that was only about 10% of the movie. The poster art is misleading. It should really just be a picture of that Goofy-toothed Granny, but then no one would watch it.

Actually, that instance looks pretty believable to me. It represents the fact that even if there is some global event happening on the Internet, many people in the outside world would not get informed and simply wouldn't care.

Racism? What racism? What unanswered questions? You say they don't bother you but yet you complain about them being a flaw in the movie, so obviously you do care to have them answered.

Anyway, I think the guy who took away the ice to cool the body pretty much did that because lack of communication was very prevalent in that family and one of the film's biggest themes about the irony on being in a world where everything and everyone is so connected, yet you cannot really speak to the person next to you. Great film, how was this ignored by The Academy Awards is beyond me.

That really doesn't explain why the US military would test a high tech virus into the OZ. It just didn't make any sense from any point of view.

Like many films, no matter how good it is, if you watch it wanting things it isn't trying to deliver on, you will be unsatisfied with it, and maybe even see it as a poorly made film. Don't listen to Skrillex if you want a sweet love ballad, etc.

For me, this film was obviously putting the family and connected characters at center stage, and all world-scale events were peripheral plot-candy to make character development more exciting and entertaining. That is why I believe those plot points can be perceived as lazily explained. To me it would be like criticizing how superficial and two dimensional Neo and Trinity's relationship was shown to develop; it simply was not the focus of the Matrix Trilogy to be primarily a love story, so they skipped a lot of moments that would have let us experience a natural and emotionally moving experience regarding their relationship. If you watched The Matrix hoping for a love story, you'd be talking about how cliche and lazy they were with their rapport building and getting them together, but all reviewers I know have ignored those particular cliches in the Matrix Trilogy because they know the film's really not primarily trying to deliver on romance, it's just something that helps fill out the characters and story.

All that's to say that I believe this to be a film for family first, and all other things second. I watched this with my wife and 3 kids, and we all enjoyed it thoroughly, because not only was it okay and entertaining for the kids to watch, it tackled some very enjoyable concepts and created believable enough interactions to keep us adults wanting to see where the characters were going. I laughed out loud several times at some of the family situations because they were done so well. I can assure anyone that if you want an engrossing, entertaining, and clever family film, you will not be disappointed by this one.