Slayers: The Motion Picture

As someone who was a big fan of the anime show.... It was alright. It was reluctant to watch it, because to me, Slayers ain't Slayers without Lina's familiar companions (Gourry, Zelgadis, Amelia, etc.), but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try anyway, and I was positively surprised. It was alright. Not as outstandingly amazing as the anime show, but neither particularly bad.

If you want to get into Slayers, maybe start with this instead of the anime show, because this is a prequel to the anime show.

Animation is good (peak 90s animation), voice acting is good, the story is okay, but ... overall, it's nothing to write home about.

This movie, while it does have great visuals and animation, is not that interesting story wise. Lina bumbles around for most of the movie until she stumbles upon plot but by then movie is almost over. I think pacing like this would be fine if it was in TV series, but it doesn't fit standalone movie.
Nevertheless, if you are fan of Slayers, it's a serviceable prequel that is kinda fun. If you are new to the series, please start with TV series, manga or light novels. And even if you are fan, there is better Slayers Movies and OVA's.

Probably the most baffling fever-dream film I have watched in quite some time. Although this is canonically the earliest Slayers content in the timeline to my knowledge, if you are even remotely interested in the Slayers franchise DO NOT start with this film as it will give a bad first impression. (Ironic as I first found out about the franchise due to a clip from this film.)

The visuals and animation look good, essentially the series with more of a budget. The soundtrack is nothing notable, but does what it needs to for the fantasy setting. However, the story's pacing is just terrible. It's honestly hard ... to explain how bad it is because of all of the baffling decisions they made. The first third is just a lot of filler stuff that does a fair job of introducing Lina, but does a pretty poor job at introducing Naga. Basically the first act is just "things happen." It wouldn't be a big deal if the 2nd and 3rd arc clearly needed more time to work with.

Light spoilers, but the best example of the poor pacing is how in the third arc a character gives an exposition dump and concludes by saying how they need to do something to save the day. This is followed by an IMMEDIATE hard cut to said place and combat that just caused so much whiplash and confusion. There is also the fact that Naga, one of the two main characters in the film, is completely absent in the climax of the film. They could have dropped her from the film and the plot could have been the exact same.