Name(s): Rebuild of Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance / Evangelion Shin Gekijouban: Ha / Evangelion 2.22 / ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版:破
Format: Movie (108 minutes)
Release Date(s): June 27, 2009
Studio(s): Khara
Related: Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) / Rebuild of Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)

SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE

I love Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I don’t understand the hype for this movie at all. This was where it was supposed to deviate more from simply being a rushed adaptation of the series with minor changes, but that’s only half true. Evangelion Rebuild 2.0 has more original scenes in it and a different plot progression but it’s still largely recreating the same emotional beats of the show with awkward pacing.

A turn-off of these movies is that even though they’re one continuous thing, they still feel heavily divided into episodic chapters rather than having one consistent arc, so the story’s escalation is up and down between high school life and Angel attacks that come out of nowhere. There are some new Angels this time around but none have strategies to deal with them as complex as the series’.

Visually, this has a higher resolution, “cleaner” look than the series, but is less appealing to look at. People are used to me saying this every single time now, but everything looks way too bright and solid-colored in a typical digital way, and more specifically there’s the use of a ton of CG in the mechs, backgrounds, and people that doesn’t mesh perfectly with the 2D backgrounds.

Mari is an annoying eccentric character whose reason for any involvement in anything is kept 100% hidden so she’s just a distraction I have no reason to care about every time she shows up, and at worst she’s tonally jarring. That whole scene where Asuka tsunderely dumps her true feelings on Misato in this sweet scene with soft music playing and then steps in the Eva only for things to go instantly horribly wrong in one single second was just funny. Then there’s the “existential” climax and Anno does that End of Evangelion thing again where he mixes pop ballads with violent, surreal imagery only to make the attempted beauty look trite by its poor comparison to End of Evangelion.

I don’t really care about seeing Shinji almost running away again and then coming back. I don’t need to see that golden train scene again. I’ve already seen all of this shit, and I don’t care to see it all remixed in a way that’s not comparable to the original. Placing the same conversations and character developments in different rooms than the first time doesn’t make it feel fresh. The completely unnecessary fanservice shots made me feel embarrassed and aren’t “subversive” or however people will defend them. I felt like I was being pandered to with this movie, and it just isn’t anywhere near as good as the original story it’s being derivative of. If this is the best Rebuild gets, then I can’t imagine how bad 3.0 could’ve been.