First off, to the people new to Evangelion: you really should watch the previous three rebuild movies before this one to get a better grasp of what's happening. If you have patience, it's well worth watching the original episodic series and the original Evangelion movie from 1997 to get the best grasp possible, this take 2-3 days if you binge watch.
Truth be told, I didn't have high hopes after the last movie (3.0).
I thought the unexpected story from 3.0 had written itself into a corner, that there was no redeeming the Rebuild series as there were too many questions left unanswered that can't be explained with one final movie, but the story from 3.0+1.01 did as well as you can possibly hope for it to do--It tied up some loose ends, explained things that made sense of the last movie and added to the Evangelion lore in a meaningful way.
There are fighting scenes but as usual for the Evangalion franchise, some of the best scenes are the interactions between the characters Shinji, Rei, Asuka and the people around them. The most interesting of these is near the end of the movie when Shinji confronts his intimidating father who has been a mystery for so long. We learn he's not too different from his son, he just has a different way of coping.
Many themes about humanity are explored such as maturity, loneliness, compassion and the importance of responsibility and these themes are told in such a way that it didn't feel like it was hammering away at you to make the point like you're an idiot but it wasn't very obtuse either that no one gets it.
This movie easily contain some of the best drawn animations in current anime history, it's filled with fluid animation from unique angles, which helps with some of the fanservice (and there's heaps of it in this movie) Combined with the top notch shot composition, the movie is beautiful to watch. You can see the money being spent on screen.
It's not perfect. The first 15 minutes seemed like a drag even though it was an action sequence, the CGI can be quite jarring in contrast to the hand drawn stuff and certain parts of the story is not easy to follow (this is why i recommend you watch everything else first) but the movie is so great as a whole that it still gets a 9 from me. Evangelion has already cemented itself as one of the most esteemed anime of all time and the last movie elevates its status to something higher.
Truth be told, I didn't have high hopes after the last movie (3.0).
I thought the unexpected story from 3.0 had written itself into a corner, that there was no redeeming the Rebuild series as there were too many questions left unanswered that can't be explained with one final movie, but the story from 3.0+1.01 did as well as you can possibly hope for it to do--It tied up some loose ends, explained things that made sense of the last movie and added to the Evangelion lore in a meaningful way.
There are fighting scenes but as usual for the Evangalion franchise, some of the best scenes are the interactions between the characters Shinji, Rei, Asuka and the people around them. The most interesting of these is near the end of the movie when Shinji confronts his intimidating father who has been a mystery for so long. We learn he's not too different from his son, he just has a different way of coping.
Many themes about humanity are explored such as maturity, loneliness, compassion and the importance of responsibility and these themes are told in such a way that it didn't feel like it was hammering away at you to make the point like you're an idiot but it wasn't very obtuse either that no one gets it.
This movie easily contain some of the best drawn animations in current anime history, it's filled with fluid animation from unique angles, which helps with some of the fanservice (and there's heaps of it in this movie) Combined with the top notch shot composition, the movie is beautiful to watch. You can see the money being spent on screen.
It's not perfect. The first 15 minutes seemed like a drag even though it was an action sequence, the CGI can be quite jarring in contrast to the hand drawn stuff and certain parts of the story is not easy to follow (this is why i recommend you watch everything else first) but the movie is so great as a whole that it still gets a 9 from me. Evangelion has already cemented itself as one of the most esteemed anime of all time and the last movie elevates its status to something higher.