This film is a new adaptation of the classic "Neon Genesis Evangelion" series. I admit that I've never watched the actual anime except for "End Of Evangelion". I have however read the manga (which came second). I'm glad to have seen or read every version except the original! From what I know, this is a very faithful retelling of the anime with all the most important plot points appearing. I remember hearing about all this stuff when people talked about Evangelion online. It's great how realistic this movie and franchise is, particularly with how reluctant Shinji is to pilot the Eva.I'm glad to understand the series better. What works here is the gorgeous animation. We even get all the original voice actors (including Spike Spencer) contribute to the film. There's no attempt to make the series modernized or anything. It's simply a faithful version of something very beloved. My favorite part is probably the final battle with the sixth angel. I don't know their names, okay? I also love the scenes in Misato and Shinji's apartment as it's great to see the characters dealing with such mundane problems. ***1/2

I did not watch the original 26 episodes series but I watched in these days all Evangelion films, because of the high ratings: Death and Rebirth (a recompilation of the original series), The End (a rewriting of the End of the series, still considered one of the best Anime ever), and then the last three, 1 and 2 which reboot the series apparently without mayor changes, and 3 which goes in new territories. At first I will write about Evangelion in general, and then about this specific movie here. In all Evangelion the writer touched any possible demagogic stereotype and cliché on earth: father/son relationship, Oedipus complex, a bit of the typical Manga Style sexuality, cheap psychology, and a huge amount of very cheap esoterism with symbolisms of all kind. My opinion? A big omelet of everything, which finally means absolutely nothing. Wiki says that after the failure of his previous works (which he judged as childish) he wanted to make something "deeper". My impression is that he did not even try to BE deeper, rather just to SEEM deeper in order to impress the audience. And I am afraid that only the Naive could be impressed by such a confused mess.I can still see why this show had success: Evas are cool, fights too, and there is enough mix of drama, action, teenage nerd sexuality in the typical Japanese style, and some sort of epic. I suppose that if you are younger than me and without any knowledge of psychology or esoterism, and a bit nerd, you may enjoy this works pretty much more than I did.About this film: although it is almost a copy and past of the original series under many aspects, the graphics are of course better. This beginning catch the attention and creates enough wish to keep going on and to understand what is really happening in that fictional words and in the inner world of the characters. If I had not seen how it is going to evolve with the number 3, I would suggest this film nevertheless the esoteric omelet and the cheap psychology. Having seen the number 3, I must warn you that you may be disappointed. But I would still suggest the vision of this film. People have to make their own experiences, and chances there are, that as so many people enjoyed this series, many more will, no matter what I think of it.

I'm assuming that you've already watched the original EVA series before watching the movie before reading this. If not, spoilers abound.So yes, this is basically a retelling of the original Evangelion in movie mode, and it's the first of 4 movies. This first movie covers the first six episodes of the original series, therefore not exactly innovative or anything shockingly interesting about the story.The art is simply fabulous. The original series already had excellent artwork for its generation, and they've managed to improve it. Introduction of CG was definitely a great move, and it made scenes even better, especially the fighting parts. They completely redid the scene with the Angel Ramiel, replacing traditional hand-drawn Ramiel with CG designs. Needless to say, that scene turned into absolute eye-candy. Other uses and integration of CG were more subtle, such as introducing it into the graphs, computer charts, and background. The human character designs were sharpened a bit from the original, but otherwise remained unchanged. But it was integration of CG into this remake which really stole the light.The sound remained mostly the same, but they did add new sound effects, most notably to the EVAs and Angels, and an excellent new ending song.Characters remained virtually the same, except they cut out a lot of Shinji's bitching/whining, so definitely a good move. Made the movie a lot more enjoyable, as we only seen about 5 minutes of whining, opposed to the half episodes of man-bitching in the original series.Seeing this movie was definitely fun to watch, because they basically took the original series, and remade with better graphics, with a few minor changes, so that it's enjoyable to watch without feeling it's the same as the original series, yet not different enough that it strays away from its original roots. This definitely will bring back nostalgic feelings from older fans whilst giving something new for them to watch and admire.This movie is actually a good enough retelling that a newcomer to EVA can watch this instead of the original series, and will be able to know nearly everything that happened. (Of course, it's not really recommended, seeing how it's the original that was so profound and revolutionary.) After seeing this, I have high hopes for the following three movies, although I am a bit doubtful about the last one.

While I knew a little about the Japanese anime Neon Genesis Evangelion through the reading of various fan sites dedicated to it, I've never actually sat down and watched an episode of the series. So when opportunity came by to experience the Rebuild of Evangelion, why not start the slate clean? Rebuild of Evangelion is actually a tetralogy based on the original anime series by the same creative team, but it's not exactly a shot-by-shot rehash in that it does include some extra scenes, and I guess the objective is to allow the tetralogy to encapsulate what worked in the original, while at the same time to perhaps make it the more definitive telling of the story. Kind of like how comic books like to do the various reboots and tweaking of origins to suit the times.We're introduced to Shinji Ikari, the teenage kid whose father Gendo is commander of an organization called NERV, which developed the Evangelion mechas to fight against alien Angels who invade Earth. To a layman like me, it's something like Ultraman battling monsters, except that are certain constraints here that make Evangelions interesting. Firstly, they are dependent on launch pads and are wired to NERV control, and what more, piloting these sophisticated mechas involves some bio-fusion between children, and the bots. Imagine having the fate of the world resting on the shoulders of a child, and what more, a rookie one in Shinji, who has to learn the ropes on the job. To complicate matters, he's the reluctant hero who whines a lot, is indecisive, and seems like he could lose it all anytime.But that's exactly what makes Evangelion a joy to watch. The flawed heroes, compounded by the fact that with every increasingly powerful Angel to battle, the Evangelions seem to be more patched and repaired after each encounter, you'd wonder how long it could hold up before actually crumbling. The battle sequences here are nothing less than spectacular to watch, as we discover along with the heroes, just how best to defeat the vastly different Angels. Animation wise there's nothing to specially shout out about, as it's quite standard 2D fair with the usual attention to details.Being the introductory movie, this film begins quite unconventionally in the thick of the action to grip your attention and never let up. As it moves along, it does drop hints of previous incidents, while introducing us to new characters along the way, expanding its mythos and universe. And in all intents, it does leave many doors opened for questioning, and it's almost definite that these would (hopefully) be answered in the subsequent films. Oh, and for action junkies, I give the thumbs up for the final battle in this movie - the creative team really do know how to make everything look really bleak!For those who are new to the series, I quite sure this will serve as an excellent starting platform into the Evangelion universe. For those who have already been in the loop (and probably hated the series ending), this could be interesting for you to see what changes were made, and whether you will prefer the tetralogy instead.