I think it's in the same tier as Speed Racer. Both try to capture the feeling of the source material but are too experimental and visually noisy for audiences at the time. Unfortunately, out of the two, only Speed Racer has gotten the critical reappraisal.

youtu.be/XrTZV1oyUMM?...

Soichi Terada is so good! Sidebar but have you heard the album Sumo Jungle Grandeur by him? It's not on streaming afaik but it's one of my fav albums of all time.

Either you need dumber looking glasses, or you need to be the peon of a sociopathic tech oligarch. Could be either one.

Spiral into Gladness

I like how it had imprinted itself in the cultural lexicon, mostly as the frame of Ray Liotta doing this weird little arm cross while cackling.

Not trying to be the bluesky joke destroyer guy. I just think David Hayter deserves his flowers.

Before the first movie, it really was just an accessory, and then the comics just adopted the idea from the movie that it had mind shielding properties. So yeah, you're kinda right.