First thing you'll definitely notice - The animation:
Character designs:
The character designs in this movie very much resemble those in Mekakucity Actors, in the way that they lose their sheen and smooth polish used in the anime series. Personally I think this is actually pretty neat, there isn't much change from the characters characteristics apart from Hanekawa being even more well-endowed (if you think this is a problem you're lying to yourself). The only complaint I had was the very brief scenes where 3D animation was used to animate characters. While the models were very detailed, the movements were very robotic.
Background/Setpieces:
There are a lot more live action images and film inserts in both the backgrounds and structures in the film than in any previous Monogatari series. Even structures you've seen before such as the cram school and Araragi's high school look entirely different in this movie. The rotoscopes and live action images are so well done that they're indistinguishable from each other. It blends well with the new character designs so it all works to give it a new fresh look. Whether or not it works is all personal preference, I think it worked quite well.
Next up is the story:
Story:
This is the prequel of the Monogatari series explaining Araragi's first encounter with the supernatural, namely Shinobu. This being the first part of a trilogy and me not wanting to spoil anything, I can't give a complete overview of the plot so I'll leave it at this.
Faithfulness to source material:
I have not read Kizumonogatari, however from what I heard from the friend I went with whom has read Kizumonogatari, this movie did adapt about a third of the book. However there are some moments that do seem stretched in order to make it long enough to be a film (though the film is only 60 minutes long). According to my friend some events receive clearer explainations in the book, however there was nothing altered too much.
Dialogue:
To my suprise this movie had the least amount of speaking in any installation of the Monogatari series. This is mainly due to the stretched scenes I referred to earlier, but it actually didn't bother me much. I think if there was too much dialogue I wouldn't be able to take in the new style of artwork displayed in the series, also the dialogue that was present was very good.
Humor:
I'm especially making a section on humor because this movie has some of the best I've seen in the Monogatari series in a long time. The first half of the movie has some of the best visual humor and witty dialogue that made me and the rest of the audience laugh out loud at its sheer ridiculousness and snark (including what I now know as the epitome of the world's most glorious panty shot, you'll see what I mean).
And finally, Overall enjoyment:
This was honestly a treat to watch on the big screen and hope to see the next two in theaters as well. What made Bakemonogatari so great was that it was like nothing anyone had seen before, however after multiple seasons and specials proving that it could be replicated it was really nice to see such jurassic changes to the film, making it seem like you're watching something totally new. Overall, this was a great film and I highly recommend watching it as soon as you can.
Final Score: 9/10
