TLDR: As with all Shinkai films, it's gorgeous, breathtaking, and you'll probably get a decent tearjerker moment no matter your walk of life, but in the end it doesn't really hold a candle to "Your Name", let alone any of his better & earlier works.
I'd like to preface this by admitting that I personally believe Shinkai's previous works "5 Centimeters per Second" and "The Garden of Words" are two of the greatest films I've ever seen, not just in the anime sphere. This is important for later. I was also a pretty big fan of "Weathering With You" despite the criticisms of its ending and general direction of its plot.
To put it plainly, I feel like Shinkai is currently chasing the high that he achieved with "Your Name", a phenomenal film by all rights in terms of artistic direction, music, and, though debatable, plot. I have written extensively about that film in a separate review.
My problem stems from the fact that his films still continuously feel like they're chasing "Your Name" in that they're beautiful films with okay stories that people are going to talk big about but in the end they're still just 6/10 movies to me. I can't seem to find that same creative depth and use of metaphor that permeated through his previous films. I don't know if it's because I'm getting cynical, or if it's because they're just not as great as his earlier works, a phrase I say lightly because it does feel like a shallow criticism.
All in all, I enjoyed the film, especially after getting a chance to think over the film over a cup of coffee. The message I took away from the film was that "No matter how much crisis you faced in your life, you can generally look at your life now and think 'I'm okay.'" We're always able to look back at how much disaster was happening in the film's past, in Japan itself, and even in the rest of the world and then also compare the state of the world as it is today and how we continue on living despite the pain and suffering we faced in the past. That message resonates really well with the film, and I hope you reading this can help you enjoy it to a greater extent as well.
