In general Madoka Magica is renowned for how wonderfully it took the elements of a genre that had slowly stalled over the years and turned it all upside down just to reconstruct it in an awe inspiring tragedy.
In Madoka Magica we follow what would be the obvious logical conclusion of little girls fighting against eldritch abominations, the horror and despair at facing the consequences of getting what you wanted (which may not be what you needed) along with exploring themes such as keeping hope in the face of adversity.
We also saw fellow magical girl Homura Akemi taking the role of the Faust from Goethe's bittersweet tale (and my favorite tale, to booth) and striving to give fate the middle finger.
Meanwhile we also got a villain that was compelling and interesting in his use of smarts and honeyed words to achieve his goals rather than brute force or magical might that is so cliché nowadays. Not to mention he was also "one of the good guys" as a necessary evil for the universe to keep going.
While the ending of Madoka Magica was supposed to be bittersweet with a light of hope and the promise of salvation at the end, Rebellion decided to shoot down that hope, then spit and dance over its dead corpse.
In short, SHAFT trolled us HARD starting with a misleading trailer with actively modified scenes that had no resemblance to what was shown in the movie. One glaring example being when Kyoko runs across a normal street in the trailer that was so modified in the movie I actually had trouble recognizing it was the same scene.
Art:
I gave art a 10/10 because SHAFT once again went all out with their baroque and psychedelic scenes. The normal life scenarios are vividly drawn and heavily detailed while the magical scenes keep the beloved paper cut models the original series was famous for.
The battle scenes were nicely drawn and the choreography was awesome, particularly during a magical girl vs magical girl battle and the ending.
Sound:
Once again 10/10 thanks to Kalafina and Yuki Kajiura's excellent performance. The songs are powerful and just like in the original series manage to make even the simplest of scenes pack a methaphorical punch to the gut. Of particular praise is "Your Silver Garden" by Kalafina that just like Magia provided a macabre and sombre undertone to the already creepy end.
"For the next episode" by Yuki Kajiura is also a haunting and sweet melody on par with old masterworks like "Sis Puella Magi" or "Decretum".
But personally the cake to me was the Opening "Colorful" by ClariS that coupled with the scenes shown at the beginning acts as foreshadowing of the things to come. It manages to be dark and depressing, setting the tone of the movie. It also acts like a darker inverse to "Connect" the series OP for those that know what I'm talking about.
Character:
And here's where things start to differ from the show and that's why to me its a 7/10. Magica Quartet said that this would be Homura's movie and it shows. To the detriment of the other characters and sadly even the villain got SHAFTED (pun intended).
We'll start with the main character of this movie: Homura. In the main series we find her going from a meek and depressive girl with glasses and a heart condition to a badass and ruthless magical girl willing to do whatever it takes to reach her goal. While in the series we're shown her endless loyalty to her best friend (and maybe more) and are made to root for her and her tragic quest to set right what once went wrong, in the movie we are shown the darker side to her obsession and made to walk the fine edge between selfish and selfless love as Homura is forced to make a decision. In the end, we reach a rather obvious conclusion that nonetheless felt like a sour pill hard to swallow.
For all her character development though, I had high hopes when the movie was announced that after Homura had been made to move on (rather forcibly by Madoka I must add) we would be able to see a new and interesting side to her beyond her obsession with Madoka. Sadly, that wasn't the case. In the end, it really is all about Madoka...
The second most developed character in this movie is Sayaka, where she's shown in a more mature and interesting role even if she appears a little Mary Sue'ish at times. She appears in several key scenes and actually proves key in moving the plot forward. Its surprising given that Urobuchi said in an interview that he hates her character and I'm led to believe that Shinbo made some meddling to give her a less cruel and more important role, a role that we'll most likely see expanded in sequels.
Of the rest of the cast, sadly they are in the movie mostly as background characters for Homura to interact with and provide very little to the story. They may as well not be there or just be an illusion and the movie would have worked.
Mami Tomoe and her new pet mascot are there mostly to provide a battle and a little of talk but that's it, they are left out of the loop for the whole movie.
Kyoko appears at the beginning mostly to serve as fanservice for the KyoSaya fans, then she learns a piece of the plot but instead of investigating on her own or at least providing assistance to Homura, she sort of fades into the background and doesn't appear again until the finale.
Madoka appears at a key moment to talk but given the nature of the movie she's forced to go back from the brave and resolute Madoka at the end of the series to the meek one that doesn't know what's really happening. I was quite disappointed as she makes several stupid decisions that lead to the ending we see and is jarring to see the girl that said she would break the laws that stopped a happy ending going against the development she had previously established.
The most glaring violation though is with Nagisa AKA Bebe that was even advertised as really important to the movie. In the end she only appears in two scenes and has no special purpose besides pandering to Mamilotte fans with fanservice. As a matter of fact I found her annoying when she appeared with her loud pokemon speak. The movie could have been perfectly fine without her.
Kyubey was interesting in that he's once again given a large role but only after past half the movie, the first part is spent doing pokespeak. He too seems dumber than in the series as instead of using his wit to deceive and mislead he takes more direct action with experiments that ultimately fail and revealing all his cards without setting countermeasures. Something basic the writters took the care to add in the series, like when he prevented Madoka from wishing him to dissappear before Madoka could attempt to simply by giving a reasonable and logical purpose to his gruesome activities. Why not do it in the movie? Especially when he holds all the cards?
He really needs to read The Evil Overlord handbook because his actions here were more cliché and far from the smart and manipulative Kyubey of the series, shown as he is always one step behind what are supposed to be fourteen years old girls and by his line when everything inevitably blows up in his face.
While many have argued that the movie simply didn't have enough time to portray the characters and have them develop, the counter I have is the first and second Madoka movies, a retelling of the series that managed to cram the development and still work. Either they could have put less fanservice or less characters and the movie would have still worked.
Story:
An 8/10 due to how contrived the story was. While in the series everything was neatly wrapped, each character had a moment to shine and there was a sense of urgency and importance to everything that was said and done, here the story starts with half an hour of fanservice that honestly dragged far too long and instead of putting me on edge or setting the atmosphere, had me looking at the clock and waiting for the shoe to drop. The mistery was too easy to solve and I was between Gretchen or Homura as the culprits after watching the first minutes so I felt exasperated as they dragged the pandering on and on.
The second part was interesting and almost redeemed the first but once again it failed short of my expectations by having the big bad reveal all his cards and acting like a cliché villain while everyone else was who knows where. Knowing the "heros" could have solved the mistery and avoided the ending just by sitting and talking also doesn't sit well with me, neither does the lack of planning and countermeasures on the Incubator's part, especially when going against potentially omnipotent beings.
Then there's the fact they felt the need for trolling and leaving an open end to continue the franchise while wasting all previous themes and resetting the characters. I for one expected to see what Madokami's world was like and the wraiths but alas no such thing.
There was so much potential that was discarded by the reset, as if the writters had no idea how to continue this and said "screw that! Lets start anew!".
What's worse, they even wasted the nightmares.
Enjoyment:
A 9/10 because despite its flaws the movie was interesting and beautifully animated, the sound was exceptional. Still, it fell short from what its predecessor had accomplished and left a sour taste in the mouth. More tiring was the cyclical nature of the retconn, as if we're going in circles and the characters regressed to what was basically the beginning of the series. Feels like wasted potential but they achieved their goal of dividing the fanbase and has a high rewatch value.
Overall:
A 8/10 because it was a masterpiece but still not on the level of Madoka Magica. The characters and story suffered the most and sometimes I found my suspension of disbelief shattering by their actions. Overall it was okay.
