*SPOILER ALERT*
I assume that you have watched the original NGE+EOE, because I will refer to them a lot during the review. Also, obvious spoilers for the movie.
First of all, it's important to point out that the Rebuild films are not intended to be just the recaps for the original series and thus may be quite different from your beloved Evangelion in directing, story and so on. Therefore, I will be taking this into consideration and will be a bit tolerant to the movie in that sense - it shouldn't be a copy of its parent.
Let's begin with the story. As far as I am concerned, the first Rebuild film is resembling the original Evangelion more than the others, thus not many differences between the story/direction. However, they are present and are quite significant, in my opinion. Take the scene at school when Rei tells Shinji about the upcoming mission and then leaves. In NGE the context of her phrase was quite important - at that time Shinji was just beaten up by Toji, and Rei didn't give a single fuck about that. Such small detail added to the emotionless character of Rei. In the movie, however, Rei's message and the the beaten up Shinji are separated, thus lacking the character development that could be given to Rei by putting her "report" about the mission in a much more peaceful setting with Shinji lying on the roof.
One more interesting difference is how Akagi and Misato's relationship is depicted. Unlike NGE, here it is more "personal" - the characters talk to each other in quite relieved situations like in the bar or on elevator. The last one was especially great - Misato constantly moving her legs back and forth is sort of opposed to calm Ritsuko. This scene underlines the difference in their characters - energetic Misato and collected Ritsuko.
Some scenes were depicted less impressive than in NGE, and less disturbing, I would say. It especially applies to Shinji running away - it felt very rushed and failed to create the dark atmosphere present in NGE. I believe that the older animation of the series was even better for this atmosphere specifically. However, there was also a good point in the movie about the "night walk" part - it was foreshadowed by Misato scolding Shinji. In the series, we just kinda jumped to it. Also, Shinji does not have an encounter with Kensuke at night in the movie - less time to establish their relationship. Speaking of Kensuke and Toji, Shinji's relationship with them felt too rushed, and a lot of the scenes come out of the blue. For example, when Shinji punches Toji because he asks him to, SHINJI DOESN'T EVEN HESITATE HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE. Here the movie failed to create the drama present in the original and escalated Shinji's relations with his classmates way too fast, to the point where they didn't even feel significant.
I was literally comparing the movie to NGE, sometimes stopping it and then watching the same moment from the series to understand which one did its job better and why, so I would like to point out some small details, hope you'll find them interesting.
1) Shinji doesn't even run away from NERV, which means that a lot of his internal struggle and the reestablishment of trust within Misato is cut off.
2) The scene with Shinji screaming after seeing his EVA's eye after the battle is abandoned - probably because the creators of the movie didn't want it to be as dark as NGE. Also, in the series it served as a hint for Shinji that those damn robots are actually alive.
3) The use of lighting in the scene where Shinji sits in half-darkness depressed and scolded by Misato is better in the original series, as well as Misato's voice acting - it created a more disturbing and nervous atmosphere.
4) They no longer call the pilots "nth children", but just in a Japanese way. Not as authentic and funny as before :-[
5) We can see both nerv's new and old logos throught the film, which is strange
6) The scene with EVA-00 going berserk is too rushed - it just instantly goes insane, whereas in the original series we can see how the activation was being successful for some time, creating a bit more excitement.
7) Why is it PEGI-13 despite rei's breasts are exposed in that famous scene lol. And therefore we can't see the creative censorship as in original nge which was hiding the nipple so creatively :-[
(We get even more nipples when Rei is putting on her plug suit)
8) The scene of Shinji and Rei in the train is a great exposition of their present disconnection (they're sitting in the opposite ends of the train).
9) First Ritsuko gives the passes to Misato and tells her to give them to Shinji and Rei, but when Shinji gives it to Rei, he says that Ritsuko gave it to him? What? Wasn't that Misato? I little plothole :^) Probably caused by the fact that in NGE it was actually Ritsuko who handled Shinji the pass.
10) Angels are now depicted with a nimbus (however I didn't notice it with Ramiel) and a rainbow after death. Great addition to their aesthetics.
I will now move on to the directing again and will highlight some great moments of the movie (as well as some plotholes).
Overall, Hideaki Anno is never disappointing - there are lots of great cuts with the background moving along with the characters, I really love these moments of motion. They are present a lot when we see Ritsuko and Misato talking to each other.
I am particularly happy that they didn't abandon these gold Misato's facial expressions there - the one during the discussion of the plan of defeating Ramiel was particularly amazing, yet so simple. Speaking of Misato, I love the scene where she approaches Shinji who is on the bridge between two buildings. The right one (from where Misato is approaching) is lit up, and the left one (that is closer to Shinji) is not, showing us the difference in their mood before the battle - optimistic Misato and disturbed Shinji with little motivation to pilot EVA. After that, how Misato encouraged Shinji was shown great - both by physycal intimacy (OR MY GOD THEY'RE HOLDING HANDS) and by exposing the boy to Lilith. Might feel a bit rushed compared to how late it happened in the series, but it is well justified there.
A bit about the characters - I enjoyed how Rei asked if she needs to protect Shinji during the instruction before the final battle, despite the fact that she already knows it and confirmed that earlier in the dialog. So she asked this again to give some feeling of protection to Shinji and ensure him he is not alone, thus showing her growing care for him. I like these tiny bits.
This particular scene was present in the original series too, but I picked this up just now :-]
Of course, I can not write this review without talking about the animation quality. Undoubtedly, it improved a lot compared to NGE, and most of the times looks really impressive. But where it really shines is in the battles, especially the one with Ramiel - it was just amazing. By the way, Ramiel deserves his own mention - he was probably the least graphically developed Angel in NGE, but in this movie he looks just gorgeous, I was blown away really. And Shinji was a bit more heroic here. While I am still talking about the battles, I'd like to mention the onscreen information, the quality of which improved tremendously and which is now even more exciting to observe.
Finally, the battle ends with Rei smiling for Shinji, and it felt a bit more romantic compared to NGE because they held hands afterwards (and she didn't remember Gendo before smiling here). Just wow, in the course of 1 hour and 40 minutes Shinji managed to hold hands with 2 girls already. That's impressive.
I couldn't forget about SEELE when writing about Evangelion. Their new logo is cool and strengthens the present symbolism. Aside from the Seven Spirits of God, we see a snake embracing an apple. All the 3 elements are direct references to Christianism, I am not sure how to interpret it yet with the phrase on the logo, however. The SEELE monolith also received a new logo on the back, which reminds me of illuminati. Overall, the redesign was great, stylish and made SEELE even more mysterious than before.
Now Kaworu. He is introduced much earlier than in NGE, as well as Adam under SEELE's control, although not in his embryo form, which is shown in NGE. Instead, he is sealed with almost the same mask as Lilith (the design is different, but both of them have the Seven Spirits of God emblems, which are present on the SEELE logo). So the plot points which are just implied in NGE (Adam and Kaworu under SEELE's control) are shown explicitly there.
Kaworu woke up from some type of a box, being the fifth one. The other 4 opened ones imply that 4 angels have already woke up (probably Sachiel, Shamshel, Ramiel and some unknown third angel, which should be in between Lilith (the 2nd) and Sachiel (the 4th)), and that SEELE is in control of the process. I find this "show don't tell" trick very suitable here.
The number of Angels has also changed - seems like there will be 12 in total (I am not sure about it as the numeration has also changed, for example Sachiel is the fourth, not the third as in NGE).
Moreover, there are a total of 9 boxes, and I believe it correlates with what Gendo said after defeating Sachiel (that there are 8 angels left). However, i can't exactly find this moment in the film, so not entirely sure about this point. :-[
Then, the ending song. It seems that they have written a new song about Shinji, now during the ending credits. It's a love song essentially, so might be some foreshadowing for a relationship between Shinji and Rei (?). In the end, these films will differ from original Evangelion, so who knows.
And finally, I loved the preview in the end, it just remembered me of the good times of watching NGE and having Misato talk about the next episode often in a playful manner (more fan service soon!)
To sum up, I really enjoyed this movie and I am looking forward to the rest now. It did quite a good job at saving the Evangelion's atmosphere, whilst also improving the artwork, and even though I believe that NGE has done some of the scenes better than the movie, it's not that significant and almost doesn't affect the enjoyment of the movie.
