tries too hard to be a mindfuck film

This is a good movie, but it becomes rather excessive and tiring to watch at a certain point. Satoshi Kon seems to have all these ideas for big, fantastical sequences that make the most out of the film's dream logic and surrealist nature but at a certain point, the imagery he portrays just come off feeling really random and a bit much.

Before you shout "But it's a DREAM, you fucking idiot! It's supposed to feel random!", I have this to say. Dreams are not usually THIS over-the-top. Dreams tend to usually mimic experiences we've had in the real world. They are surreal, but they usually aren't this fantastical. If you want to see a better, more accurate portrayal of what most dreams are like, look no further than the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I'd like to believe that most of the imagery Satashi Kon employs here has a deeper meaning, but things like Paprika becoming the Monkey King just felt really random and crowbarred (felt more like Ready Player One than anything). The part where Konakawa finds himself in a train fight reminiscent of From Russia With Love, was a much better way of incorporating a pop culture reference in a dream sequence. Maybe the Monkey King reference has a deeper meaning, I don't know.

Who else thought this movie tried too hard to be a mindfuck experience?