There have been many reviews written about the End of Evangelion over the years. I could do the same, even if I had to pretty much repeat similar arguments, just wording them differently; or analyze this movie in details, bringing up certain moments and analyze them shortly after. I won't do this, though. Instead, I will focus on what I didn't like and what made my score so low.
This review is spoiler-free and focuses mostly on technical aspects of the movie. I assume, since it's a sequel, that every reader is familiar with the content from Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series from 1995-1996.
What bugged me the most was the composition. This movie felt more like two double-length episodes connected with each other without much consistency. Artism or not, it simply doesn't look good to see a movie divided into two easily distinguishable parts, where one is radically different to another. First 40 minutes are full of well animated action sequences, showing what was happening shortly after the tragic events from ep. 24 of the original TV series. Great direction, fluent animation, good art. Second half presents a more artistic approach, however, it fails to do it well. Many sequences looked as if the most of this movie's budget was spent in the first half, making the second one have moments that could be put on par with ep. 25 and 26 of the original TV series. Way too different, even to the point of being edgy, and simply looking cheap. You could accept it in a TV series, but not in a movie. Movies tend to have bigger budgets and its creators have more time to work on them to polish as many elements and scenes as it is possible. It's a shame. It might sound harsh, but as a regular viewer I shouldn't care about possible production issues or background behind the production process when watching a movie, but rather fully focus on... watching that movie instead.
Another thing that I saw as a con was symbolism. I saw references to many things commonly mentioned in various analyses on the Internet, but they didn't serve as symbols. More like fancy references to make the movie seem to look more complex and sometimes dark, but nothing more than that. No matter how one might try to fabricate hidden meaning behind said elements, they just don't feel connected to the point of saying "yup, everything has a meaning". Using artistic methods such as "show, not tell" and imagery was visible and present, sure, but so what? So what if these symbols were all over the place, but only few of them actually had any type of connection to each other and built up a bigger picture? It's a good moment to quote Roger Ebert, brilliant movie critique, who said once: "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't". Can't agree more, especially when it fully applies to the End of Evangelion. I saw many times NGE fans acting really toxic towards somebody not seeing much or any symbolism at all in the movie, using insults implying poor knowledge of people commenting on the movie or pointing out ignorance, whether the author of critical comment was polite or not. It's funny, given how freedom of artistic expression allows us to interpret works of arts the way we want to. It includes both overthinking by nitpicking certain elements and building up theories around them, and underthinking by simplifying a work of art through focusing on its clarity. Nothing is wrong with that, and none of the ways of interpretation I have mentioned above makes their fans more intelligent or less intelligent.
Aside from these two major negative aspects that I found as overshadowing almost everything good I could find in this movie, there were three aspects that felt absolutely awesome and presented high quality for the whole length of the End of Evangelion. They are: music and voice acting, everything harmonized with soundboards made with care.
In conclusion, while this movie is definitely worth of checking out, since similar movies are not released so often, I can't guarantee it will be entertaining to watch. I can imagine the End of Evangelion being a hit or miss for most of people. You might love it or hate it. You can also end up like me, I mean unamused and also disappointed. After hearing so many paeans about this movie, I didn't have high expectations aside from seeing a good movie, because I know how devoted fans of basically anything might hype up a show and present it as close to flawless, while the reality may be completely different.
Although, if somebody expects to see an avant-garde spectacle of random symbolism mixed with giant mechas fighting with their enemies, with crazy stuff happening on screen that might not make much sense, but seem edgy and dark enough to provoke viewers to analyze it and find their own interpretation (even if through overthinking), then they might enjoy this movie. Sadly, I didn't enjoy enjoy it myself.
