Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

I love this movie.

Eva 3+1 and the whole rebuild series is complimentary to the original series. If you're going into this movie hoping to find if it's a parallel universe to the original series, or if it's a time loop, crazy mech action, a romance drama, or anything of that nature, you'll be approaching this series in a way that will leave you dissatisfied.

This is a psychological/meta commentary. It's experimental, it revels in its babel and self-indulgence, and that's what I love about it. It examines itself, it's exploring themes around the series, fans of the series, the creator, and what the series means to all of the above.

The rebuild series takes the messages and ideas of the original series and takes a step forward, and this final movie is where that is cemented.

If you liked the last two episodes of NGA and could appreciate what they were trying to do, then there might be something here for you.

I'm a fan of the series, I watched the TV series decades ago, and now the Rebuild movies, but they are still inherently flawed in that it has always been almost incomprehensible.

So what is wrong with it? Here's what I find myself saying many times:

1. What does that even mean?!?!

It uses unknown terms in a sentence then again several minutes later as if that would help understand what it meant in the first place. Then when it does use a term that is vaguely familiar, it is used in a completely different manner and context.

2. What is that?!?!

It tries to wow us with imagery and animation that is incomprehensible. I don't even know what I am looking at!

3. What is going on?!?!

The main flaw is the story telling. It only allows a portion of it, just barely enough, to understand what is really going on. Frankly, it could lose the audience.

But hey, I am still a fan, love the characters, most especially Rei, distantly followed by Asuka, and I will watch whatever comes next.

I was very skeptical before watching this film, I am a huge fan of the original show and film and I didn't think they had to be "rebuilt".

It also didn't help that I thought the previous three films kind of sucked (though I did rewatch them before watching this one and I liked them way more the second time).

But, here we are, 9 years after the last Eva film, 24 years after Evangelion's previous theatrical conclusion, we have this movie, a beautifully animated 155 minutes long love letter to the Evangelion franchise and its fans.

This time the ending can satisfy all fans, those who look for great action, those who watch for the surrealist imagery and philosophy, those who love the characters, this movie ties every loose end beautifully.

Only issues I had here were some unnecessary fan-service scenes (though there are fans who watch it for this kind of stuff, I guess) and the 3D CGI fight scenes look kind of jarring sometimes but other than that, this was yet another high quality film by Hideaki Anno and I would highly recommend it.

Bye-bye, all of Evangelion.

I want to like this movie a lot more than I do. Unfortunately, it's pretty average until the last thirty minutes. The movie is bloated, the dialogue is not very good, and the 3D animated segments look bad. As mediocre as I thought 2.0 was, at least it had great action. I can't say the same for this movie, as most of the action is awkward 3D animation. The mythology of the rebuild movies also makes very little sense and resorts to long exposition dumps in random places. But when the movie lets go and becomes a finale to Evangelion, it's great. When it becomes the payoff to 25+ years of buildup from the original series and not the result of these past three movies, it's brilliant. It's hard to recommend the Evangelion rebuilds. The first one is a remake of the beginning of Neon Genesis Evangelion, 2.0 is mediocre with a really good ending, and 3.0 is a complete mess. This movie is definitely the best rebuild, but that isn't really a high bar. If you were left unsatisfied by End of Evangelion then I would recommend the rebuilds, but they're not really worth it otherwise.

I have no idea what happened there, but this doesn't look good in the sense of narrative as well as message because it all seemed crafted by someone at midnight before presenting an assessment.

I didn't really have much hopes for this movie ever since 3.0 because that film is personally awful, and this one doesn't improve that much either the state of those movies.

Perhaps, the only thing which I can find fascinating, is the 2d, but by looking the 3d is like seeing a low-budget DVD-animated movie. Oh goodness.