Toho Company | Release Date (Streaming): August 13, 2021
6.2
USER SCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 153 Ratings
USER RATING DISTRIBUTION
Positive:
90
Mixed:
8
Negative:
55
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5
LiquidEmotionSep 10, 2021
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A series that doesn't know what it wants to be and struggles to tell a meaningful and coherent story all while relying on the originals to fill in the blank even though it is trying to be its own thing. It's a mess.

Oh boy. I don't know where to start. This film has good moments in it. I enjoyed the village Rei scene and the animations were great in that sequence but this film, like a lot of the previous rebuilds, suffers from terrible character development and rushed plots. Too many things are unexplained for no good reason. I could go on a massive rant about everything that the series did wrong just from a simple narrative standpoint but it would take way too long but I will try to target my main complaints.

There were FAR too many directional changes to the actual story without ever explaining further. Like how Shinji basically is loved by everyone when just prior he was hated in the film. Asuka's character is practically never progressed or developed properly up until the very end of the film but it was incredibly rushed. I wouldn't want this but compared to what we actually got in the originals it would have been better to just have not included Asuka at all. The CGI fighting was terrible and made no sense. I have no idea how Gendo was able to create billions of MP Evas as once again the movie doesn't explain a damn thing. Mari, an added character, is also never developed properly whatsoever. The fan service was also distracting and pointless.

The ending is probably the most frustrating for me. It didn't feel remotely earned and was so unsatisfying considering it left a slew of issues leading up to it. They tried to make you feel bad for Gendo but it wasn't working. The guy is a PoS psychopath and neglected his only child. The ending for Shinji is also incredibly hypocritical to what the message of the series "tries" to convey and makes no sense narratively either. Anno also trying to hint this idea of "time to move on from Eva, we all need to grow up" was not needed at all. Why is that important to tell us this? Anno chose to continue the series and has made a fortune off of it so ontop all of that, he fails to properly flesh out a good coherent story that he wanted to tell us, and then tell his fans to move on at the same time to add insult to injury?

I am sorry if I sound like I am ranting a bit but I do not understand the current perception that the final film has gotten. There is still so much more I could say about questionable decisions made in this series but I think you get the point. The ending teaches me nothing of use compared to what the originals tried to tell you.
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1 of 13 users found this helpful112
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6
B-BogJan 31, 2023
Why can't they make a non-confusing movie where things make sense... I thought things were supposed to make sense this time...
0 of 1 users found this helpful01
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