End of Evangelion tells a simplistic story, and then tries to use symbolism and religious references to make it seem less simplistic. "A bunch of jerks want to fuse all of humanity into one consciousness by doing X, Y, and Z, and characters have introspective reactions to it." That's it. Take out all the symbolism, psychobabble, and religious references and that pretty much is the story. Just like how, without all the psychobabble, NGE's original ending pretty much comes down to "Shinji freaks out for two episodes while nothing happens."

Of course it feels much more interesting than that when you're watching it. Characters get killed, lots of stuff blows up, and every Eva and plot-central relic makes an appearance as the jerks carry out their plan. Unfortunately, none of the jerks have any character development, and it's not entirely clear why they want to fuse all of humanity into one consciousness. They seem to think they're doing the world a favor, but why? What is the benifit to fusing everyone (themselves included) into one body and one mind? This doesn't seem like something that would be helpful. Even Shinji realizes he shouldn't go along with it. And he's an idiot!

Actually, Shinji's dad is finally get's some character development and is related to have an entirely different and much more relatable evil plan, but he dies before he can actually do it. Shame, I liked that one better.

But hey, if their plan causes explosions and kills people then there's bound to be some great mech fights, right? Sadly no, there's only one major mech fight and it's sub-par. Actually, now that I stop and think about it, it's probably my least favorite mech fight in the series. It doesn't have any of the uniqueness that NGE fights usually have, it's just "giant mech punch things." It's not even really a fight, it's just an excuse for Asuka to get in over her head for a few minutes (though it is hear-warming when she has a vision of her mother and snaps out of her depression).

After that one-and-only mech fight, it's pretty much just introspective hallucinations on out. As I said in my NGE review, the show's psychobabble doesn't do a good job of moving the story or developing the characters. It's just weird for the sake of weird.

As a replacement for the show's last two episodes, this story is good. As something attempting to stand by its own merits, however, it's unimpresssive.

Remember in my NGE review I said no one is going to take Shinji's father seriously as a villain because he's an emotionless drone with no character development? Well, in this movie he actually does manage to get a bit of character development. His goals and motivations are revealed, but unfortunately it's done through more of that introspective psychobabble that I wish I'd skipped through in NGE. Most of it also happens after he dies (or dies and morphs into LCL, or whatever) and gets replaced by new villains, so it's not as relevant as it could have been. I'm glad his motivations came to light, but it probably should have happened while he was alive and the current villain. You know, back when he mattered.

Then, of course, a bunch of shadowy corporate suites become the main villains after Shinji's dad dies, and no one is able to take them seriously because they're emotionless drones with no character development. Yay.

Shinji makes the same decision he makes in the original series, but it's now much more clear what that decision is and why he has to make it. Unfortunately, his motivations for doing so aren't much more clear than they were in the show's ending. His character development was erratic and unclear in the show thanks to his confusing introspective hallucinations. In this movie, he once again communicates mostly through hallucinations (except this time more ghosts visit him), and I don't really feel like he gets any more developed. The psychobabble is more clear in this movie than it was in the show, but it's still not a good way to develop a character. Shinji once a gain makes an important decision, and once again I'm not sure I understand why. Actually, it's probably less impressive this time since Asuka makes the same decision.

And that's actually even more confusing, why does Asuka make the same decision? She gets no screen time between her fight scene and the big life-affirming decision. As far as I can tell, she made it so the movie could end with Shinji and a potential girlfriend on beach (and maybe factor in something about Adam and Eve and rebuilding humanity). Too arbitrary for too little payoff if you ask me.

There is some good character development here (at least compared to the show). We finally get to understand her relationship with Shinji's dad and the angels. We finally get to know what Shinji's dad was planning (even if he's dead when we do and we therefore don't care anymore). Both of those things are great. But the rest is still jumped and confusing.

Oh, and remember how I complained about the random perverted moments in NGE because they made the characters less likable? Shinji has one of those moments in this movie, and it made me absolutely despise him. It was hard to be impressed by his big life-affirming decision at the end of the anime after I saw that. I realize that that scene exists to convey shock-value - and it succeeds at that - but it also seems random and completely destroys Shinji's character. Seriously, I don't think all the psychobabble in the world will let him come back from that one.

You'll watch the whole thing from start to finish regardless of whether or not you like it, because it's better than the show's original ending. Seriously, you'll do that.

The movie itself, however, is not very approachable to newcomers. If you've never seen NGE you'll scratch your head in bewilderment for maybe twenty minutes, then give up and go watch something else.

I mentioned in NGE that that fight scenes were worth watching again, even if the rest of the show paled in comparison to them. I can't really say that here though, because the only mech fight is less of a "fight" and more like a "long, violent, drawn-out way to kinda/sorta/maybe kill Asuka." So, unless you hate Asuka, you might not need to see that more than once.

I honestly can't think of many reasons to watch this more than once, unless you plan on gathering around the water cooler and arguing about what the symbolism means.

Also, that pervertd moment I mentioned earlier will probably make some people stop watching straight-away.

The Eva units (and other bio-mechanical creatures) still have a nice sense of fluidity, the world-shattering catastrophe that the jerks unleash has some lovely explosions as well as other special effects, and Rei goes through some eye-catching mutations.

There were parts of the movie, however, where I thought the bizatre transformations - Eva's merging together, Rei transforming, huge portions of the population - went on for too long. I found myself thinking "we get it! The world's going down in a blaze of special effects! Get on with the story." Sadly, there's not much of a story to get on with.

Music, sound effects, and voice work are just as good as they were in NGE.

Maybe it's me. Maybe my English-major-itude is slipping and I don't appreciate overly-symbolic and needlessly complicated things the way I used to. Maybe I'm not as poetic as I thought I was, and I can't substitute symbolism and psychoanalysis for character development and plot twists. Maybe I'm more of a shonen nerd than I thought, and I can't abide a mech battle that barely constitutes a fight scene. Maybe I was so disappointed in NGE's original ending that I subconsciously won't allow the movie to make everything better. Maybe my readers will think this list of maybe's is funny. I don't know. But I just didn't enjoy the movie all that much.

It's definitely better than NGE's final two episodes, but it's also worse than NGE's remaining 24 episodes. If you're an NGE fan, watch it once to spare yourself the show's original ending and then put it on the shelf. If you're not an NGE fan, ignore it altogether.