Code Geass is my #1 favorite anime TV series for the following reasons:
-Twisting and Turning plots incredibly hard to predict.
-Character Complexity, Growth, and Deaths.
-Story elements and chracter actions that don't make much sense at first, but later down the line you realize it was well placed subtle foreshadowing.
-Mystery. Many scenes and dialogue end abrubtly leaving you to wonder/guess what happens or a character decides, but you have enough clues to make an educated guess.
-Characters with inner conflict of ideals vs. friends/fam vs. the world.
Gawd, loved loved loved the show! That said...
I HATED this movie. I don't use the term "hate" lightly or often; I'm hippy'esque with my love and optomism in life. But I hated this movie. I hated it because season 2 (R2) ended so perfectly, I was OK with no sequel to the story, because if there was, there was little chance the quality of the show could stay on that high level, let alone get better. Ohhhhh boyyyy, was I right (unfortunately).
This movie took everything I love about Code Geass and went over the top cliche with it in this movie.
-Plots were completely predictable and seemed even forced.
-Character dialogue that once captured the right balance of intellect, fast-pace, and whit, now just come off as entirely douchey prententious.
-Characters constantly either act completely out of their original character, or are an extreme hyperbole of their original character to the point it feels like a parody.
-There were no cool surprise move by the characters. Not to say there wasn't an intelligent plan or two created, but they over explained everything so much the conversation never felt real and explaining things as if talking to a 2 year old was NEVER Code Geass' style, quite the opposite.
-None of the inner character conflict existed; hell, there wasn't really any character conflicts between characters, except the hero vs. villian. Code Geass wsa the king of the anti-hero and greying the line between good/evil; the movie is not this at all and pretty stereotypical hero vs. vilian.
-Everything feels so damn contrived. Ugh!
-Pervy'ness. The animators went out of their way to over sexualize several female characters. I made many hard eye rolls.
-Voice Acting. Far too much simplistic run-on talking. Far too much crying, whining and screaming, especially from supposedly strong characters that would usually push feelings aside to get a job done in the short term. But nope, let's cry/whine now in the moment.
That said, here are some good things:
-Animation. It's well drawn with quick moving action scenes that aren't the series of 5 second gif-like loops of punching and firing like you see in a dragonball z or some such. Crisp, clean, and well done!
-Music. It's not as great as the original show by far, but still good.
That's it. This is my first ever review on IMDB. I loved this show so much and this movie was so bad, I had to express it and warn others, even it meant signing up for an account here. Youre welcome.
