End of Evangelion is a film unlike any other, and mostly not in a good way.
In short: there are individual bits in End of Evangelion that are very effective, exciting and often horrifyingly disturbing. Yet they're bound together by chunks of nothing, and it gives the film a schizophrenic feel, much like the series. If you start to think, pretty much nothing actually happens in the first half, and when things start to happen during the second half, they do so in a way that will leave most viewers scratching their head and going "WHAT?"
If you were bothered by the constant esoteric and weird dialogue in the series, you're not going to like this. When we are thrust into Shinji's mind in the second half the imagery on-screen truly defies explanation. In short: if you didn't like the last 2 episodes of the series, End of Evangelion has that same stuff and then some. There are multiple scenes where you could arrange the dialogue lines in any order, and it'd make exactly the same amount of sense, i.e. next to none. So much of the film is taken up by either tedious or incomprehensible things that it just doesn't work as a movie.
But there are individual parts that work, and oh boy, do they ever! Asuka fighting the mass production Evas, Misato saying goodbye to Shinji and the physical presentation of Third Impact among others are all effective moments, and visually outstanding. It is best to just drown in the visuals and the unique atmosphere than try to figure out anything that is going on. The second half features numerous "money shots" that would make excellent movie posters purely on their own. The animation is top-notch, and does the job excellently. The film also has a very unique atmosphere of strangeness and bottomless desperation.
Much like the series, I admire the concept of End of Evangelion. There are few films that paint such an effective picture of the apocalypse as this one. But it's constantly bogged down by the same problems as the series: incomprehensibility, pretentiousness and inconsistency. For example: why does SEELE constantly barrage the GeoFront even after having defeated the NERV personnel? My guess: the makers wanted the movie to have explosions.
But, I still recommend seeing this film, because it will provoke some sort of (and likely a strong) reaction from anyone, even if it's just shouting "WHAT the HELL was that about??" out loud.
In short: there are individual bits in End of Evangelion that are very effective, exciting and often horrifyingly disturbing. Yet they're bound together by chunks of nothing, and it gives the film a schizophrenic feel, much like the series. If you start to think, pretty much nothing actually happens in the first half, and when things start to happen during the second half, they do so in a way that will leave most viewers scratching their head and going "WHAT?"
If you were bothered by the constant esoteric and weird dialogue in the series, you're not going to like this. When we are thrust into Shinji's mind in the second half the imagery on-screen truly defies explanation. In short: if you didn't like the last 2 episodes of the series, End of Evangelion has that same stuff and then some. There are multiple scenes where you could arrange the dialogue lines in any order, and it'd make exactly the same amount of sense, i.e. next to none. So much of the film is taken up by either tedious or incomprehensible things that it just doesn't work as a movie.
But there are individual parts that work, and oh boy, do they ever! Asuka fighting the mass production Evas, Misato saying goodbye to Shinji and the physical presentation of Third Impact among others are all effective moments, and visually outstanding. It is best to just drown in the visuals and the unique atmosphere than try to figure out anything that is going on. The second half features numerous "money shots" that would make excellent movie posters purely on their own. The animation is top-notch, and does the job excellently. The film also has a very unique atmosphere of strangeness and bottomless desperation.
Much like the series, I admire the concept of End of Evangelion. There are few films that paint such an effective picture of the apocalypse as this one. But it's constantly bogged down by the same problems as the series: incomprehensibility, pretentiousness and inconsistency. For example: why does SEELE constantly barrage the GeoFront even after having defeated the NERV personnel? My guess: the makers wanted the movie to have explosions.
But, I still recommend seeing this film, because it will provoke some sort of (and likely a strong) reaction from anyone, even if it's just shouting "WHAT the HELL was that about??" out loud.