The music was as I remembered...absolutely captivating! The movie as a whole was what would call a nice, good anime but with nothing out of the ordinary. The story was very confusing at times..indeed for those who haven't watched the anime series it can get very troublesome as they won't know which end's which. But it gets better eventually, though as the plot is so rushed you won't get any time to settle in. On the whole its plot needs the support of the movie to survive than the the other way round.
Artwork was ..for it's time..nicely done..especially w.r.t Rahxephon. Again however the scenes are so rushed that you don't get to grasp the full meaning of each picture..for example the Dolems (giants) were given too inadequate a time compared to the anime series, they mentioned even briefly..you start to think them as side characters whereas in the anime they hold an almost pivotal position.
Characters in the movie fared of better..at least select ones.. than most other aspects of it. In particular mental growth of the main characters is clearly visible. Here too though some mismanagement made it's way in for some characters who were proudly introduced but then conveniently ignored.
This contributes to a lot of headache in understanding the story.
In the end however, the soundtrack impressed me a lot..even if little else did. The music is absolutely fantastic..though it has only one real song. Then again you might expect at least this from an anime whose main theme is a musical world. The assertion that the movie was saved only thanks to its music would hardly be unfair. In particular a certain soundtrack in the middle of the movie almost made me cry. I would thus definitely recommend the movie to any lover of anime music, I can virtually guarantee that you won't be disappointed.
In a sense a person can truly enjoy the movie only if he hasn't seen the anime first...otherwise the whole plot is spoiled. That's the way it worked for me.
