There have been others here who have done great full reviews of the film so I'll avoid that and just try to add my own two cents.
This certainly isn't Refn's best film (for me that honour still belongs to Drive) nor his second or third best. It seems like with this one he fell in love with himself, and with his persona as a director, a bit too much and started overemphasising the audiovisual aspect at the expense of story, emotional depth and character development. As good a job as some of the actors did, I simply didn't feel anything for any of the characters, not even the poor naive boyfriend, and didn't at all care what happened to them.
That said the audiovisual aspect is phenomenal, even more awe-inspiring than any of Refn's other works, and it's worth seeing this film just for that. Cliff Hernandez's score particularly is just another level of analogue synthesiser heaven and by far his best work to date. It gives the film almost every bit of emotional depth it has and lifts it from an "interesting but ultimately superficial" to "exceptional and utterly unique" piece of work -- and this from someone who still bears begrudges Refn for dismissing the Johnny Jewel soundtrack for Drive in favour of Hernandez.
In summary, go see it and enjoy it for what it has to offer, even if it's noticeably flawed in other ways.
This certainly isn't Refn's best film (for me that honour still belongs to Drive) nor his second or third best. It seems like with this one he fell in love with himself, and with his persona as a director, a bit too much and started overemphasising the audiovisual aspect at the expense of story, emotional depth and character development. As good a job as some of the actors did, I simply didn't feel anything for any of the characters, not even the poor naive boyfriend, and didn't at all care what happened to them.
That said the audiovisual aspect is phenomenal, even more awe-inspiring than any of Refn's other works, and it's worth seeing this film just for that. Cliff Hernandez's score particularly is just another level of analogue synthesiser heaven and by far his best work to date. It gives the film almost every bit of emotional depth it has and lifts it from an "interesting but ultimately superficial" to "exceptional and utterly unique" piece of work -- and this from someone who still bears begrudges Refn for dismissing the Johnny Jewel soundtrack for Drive in favour of Hernandez.
In summary, go see it and enjoy it for what it has to offer, even if it's noticeably flawed in other ways.