I have always loved Terry Gilliam's work and this is one of his best! I was impressed with how he was able to turn the tragedy of losing Heath Ledger in mid-shoot into a triumph for the film. Very few directors & writers could have pulled it off. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, & Colin Ferrell were wonderful as the many incarnations of Tony! As with most of Terry Gilliam's films, it will take a few more viewings to catch all that I missed. He always has so much going on in his films that you have to see them a few times to catch it all.
The 3D animation was awesome! I was impressed with how much of the actors were put into the animated characters. Although there is still a bit of unnatural features to them and the "dead eyes" problem still needs to be worked on. The story is very dark, but that's exactly the way the book is. I do agree that there were some deeper parts of the story that should have been included. I think that those parts were sacrificed for the 3D effects and for budget reasons. Parents should consider that this is a very graphic and scary movie before taking thier kids. Perhaps familiarizing them with the actual book would help. Overall, it was a very good adaptation.