First thing I gotta say is that this movie is long. And I mean really long seriously; 2 hours and 40+ minutes. It didn't help that it was pretty late in the night when I sat down to watch it. But did I consider it a waste of time? Hell no!
The movie tells us the story of what would happen if Haruhi Suzumiya never came to North High(if I'm not mistaken about the school's name). As you can guess Haruhi being the god/ time distortion/ a much more evolved version of humanity/ etc. that she is, when that school is out of the picture, never gets to create the aliens, time travelers and espers.
So what happens when Kyon suddenly wakes up in such a world, his whole world turned upside down?
In my opinion the movie had one thing the previous franchise lacked: Character development. Taking on a much more serious approach, showing us the shock, panic, horror, hopelessness Kyon experienced throughout the movie, the story and the characters itself deserves 10 out of 10. Art itself is easily superb as it was with the previous show and the music itself was pretty much spot on.
It may seem a little too generous of a rating, especially from someone who didn't like the anime all that much (I'm looking at you Endless Eight). The movie from what I heard at least follows the light novels much more closely and that's a plus in my opinion. Though gotta say that I haven't had the chance of reading them yet.
If you want to see a character driven and much more serious version of the previously and still loved by many Haruhi Suzumiya, this movie is for you.
And If you don't have any idea about what Haruhi Suzumiya is? - Well, This movie is too long to watch while wondering; Who the hell is he/she? What the hell is going on? What're they talking about?
