- The villain's power made me kind of interested.
- The visuals are good, both robots and people.
What was meh about it:
- Music. TV series got a lot of memorable tracks, in this movie I noticed maybe one, but it's a variation of a theme from the series, so whatever.
What was bad about it:
- The story. I understand that it is difficult to make decent a standalone movie sequel to TV series, especially series like THE Code Geass, where you have to establish both the main character, some new characters AND tell a story that makes the audience care. But it is no excuse. The whole plot of this movie is how the bad guys take something from us and how we need to take it back. The villains' plan is never thoroughly explained, so you don't feel there is anything at stake. A LOT of time is invested into side characters, who have no purpose for the plot except for fanservice (I guess that is the ultimate reason for making this movie) - which leaves even less time for the story. The gang has The Plan and can hack through anything, both enemy IT systems and enemies themselves. Some plot points are obviously taken straight out from Code Geass S1 (defeating the enemy commander during the prison defense, blowing up sakuradite) so it felt even more like fanservice. How our hero got through the enemy's defenses and got to the final chamber is not even shown, like it's obvious he wins. And so on and so forth.
- The backstory / setting. Lelouch was supposed to own all the world during his conquest, but in this movie all of a sudden we have a new country in the Middle East which remained independent. Zero Requiem is not discussed, like it doesn't matter at all. When a character ACTUALLY COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD nobody is really bothered by that fact ("you are back!!! *shock* ok let's go back to business"). In general, the movie feels like it's just another filler episode of TV series with all the characters just having fun with each other for the sake of it.
- The characters. Since there's not much time to establish all the new characters, they all feel like cardboard. For the same reason, that statement is also applicable to all characters we already know. To add insult to injury, they sometimes do shit that is completely out of place (Ougi) or character (Kallen). The final scene with CC was particularly bizarre, for many reasons. Lelouch is plain boring, he just talks with people about random things, does not explain anything about Zero Requiem or what is happening in the movie, there is no weight in what he says, no overarching philosophical themes like in the series, nothing. He feels distant and disinterested, his character is not developed.
- The dialogues. God, the dialogues were so dreadful I could cry.
Overall: cash grab. Don't waste your time unless you are an animation fanboy, mecha nerd or sth
