The best thing of the movie is the visuals and animation... seriously for a movie of 2000 it was pretty awesome!! It is just beautiful, much better than VoE visuals, and those weirds nose are gone!
The sound is the same of the 26's animated version, so you can count on that awesome "Escaflowne" battle song, that sadly only appears one time, a great battle... a pity this movie is about Escaflowne but only near the end you see it fighting... in all its glory.
The story itself it is a different one versus the original, also being far darker. And that extends to its cast, manly Hitomi. As far as it goes, almost everyone from VoE makes an appearence, just dont expect them to have the same personalities, behaviors or goals (I prefered much more Van's brother from VoE...).
That is fine, while the setting is mostly the same, like I said, it is another story.
There is just one thing that makes sting me. I understand that it is a movie that strives to cover alot, in only 95 minutes, but that brings some problems like the pacing and development of its story and characters. If you are watching this for the story, it is watchable. Not bad, not that interesting either. As for characters, the development was too rushed, they behave a certain way, and suddently with certain scene, they just change and the whole transition was just not natural or realistic at all!
This means as a viewer, the connection built with the characters wont be as strong as it should...
Vision of Escaflowne done greatly on both of these traits (though with more episodes would be even better, but for 26... was great indeed), but the movie falls short on the floor, at this point having seen VoE and being a fan of it, actually helped alot since "I could justify a bit more their behaviors" remenbering their development on the main series, making it easier to swallow at the end. Still the flaw is there.
I reccomend this one, for the fans of the original to give it a try, just came with the mindset that at the end what will left the biggest impression will be the visuals and the sound, which produced some(ok one or two) really great action scenes, overall great animation that felt much more smooth than VoE's and maybe you will kind of enjoy the darker and bit more gory atmosphere that cames with the movie, like I did.
For the new guys to the series, if you enjoyed this one, please make an effort to see at least the first 10 episodes of the original, you will enjoy it more.
A good watch. I understood where they wanted to go, it had flaws, but was entertaining noneless.
