He liked seeing the broken monsters, the broken flying planes, and the man saving people... He loved the action parts, and he was taking it all in. It was more fun watching it with him as he made no judgements on it, just took it as it is, and that was fun.
It was beautiful, some of those shots were just drop-dead gorgeous. It was also deeply flawed, plot-wise and character-wise as various folks have kindly pointed out.
I'll also say that I loved Frankie and Dex, and hated Polly and kind of nose-wrinkled a bit at Joe. So it is, but I'll have to admit that if I were Joe, I would have taken that three months in Nanking, too.