The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

With The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I'm finding myself in a bit of a conundrum. As I watched I found myself simultaneously hating and loving the movie so in the end I'm feeling luke warm. Let's dig a little deeper and see if anything of interest can be revealed by such extreme reactions.

Firstly, maybe I'm not as much of a hopeless romantic sap as I thought. Why? Apparently there are some love stories out there that even I can't seem to get on board with. That's a tall order because I was raised watching MGM musicals and Disney princesses I know true love when I see it! Suspension of disbelief comes rather easily for me...dragons...tap numbers on the street...singing crows...I get it! But umm call me old-fashioned but when an 80-something year old man (Pitt) who by some freakshow of nature is aging backwards falls for a young 8 year old girl (Blanchett) I'm creeped out! Yes. Very very creeped out in the worst sort of way where I feel like the only safe place is in bed at home with Mom checking in on me. That's not romantic. That's not sweet. That's not anything but creepy and if you aren't feeling that way when you watch this movie - you should be!

Loves:
1) The story overall
2) The production value - what a glorious glorious looking film! Each era of the story is revealed with a different lens -the camera movements, the color treatments, all of it very very specific and authentic to each time. It was visually breathtaking constructed by countless artists in their field.
3) Brad and Cate. They're awesome. No denying that.
4) The overlying message about using your time on this earth to its fullest and that it's never too late to do anything

Hates:
1) The story overall
2)Daisy's hospital scenes that pepper the film with her daughter. It was painfully reminiscent of something that bothered me in "Big Fish"...back and forth in time all the time...I hate this type of storytelling device. Get me into the story and for the love of God stop taking me out of it the whole way through!
3)Daisy-as-kid voice. Woah! This was the creepiest part. Maybe they did it so that she'd seem more "adult" and that wouldn't be as creepy to viewers...it was!
4) Seems weird that the first major things Benjamin tried out in life were sex & drinking...what does that say?

Conclusion:
Sigh. I'm confused. I HATE it when that happens. Okay, okay, I guess I liked it. I didn't love it and I was far from hating it. I did wish it could have been about 45 min shorter.