Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I thought I loved the first movie in the series but the second one stepped it up to a whole new level. I give it 6 stars :)
I love the art in the films. The characters are simple and “anime-like” but the amount of effort and detail that is put into every single seen is immense. Everything from Eva’s battle scene, to Tokyo III turning on its solar pannels, trucks driving along the intertwined roads, and the battles against the Angel’s are breathtaking. I would compare the art to the recent “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” or the recent “Dragon Ball Super: Broly”.
You can tell that everyone involved wanted to be as creative as possible and not having any repetition or fillers. Every single Angel is unique in a completely different way and the level of creativity to think of these is not something I can conceptualize. About 20 minute into the movie, there was an amazing 5-minute fight sequence, and then the story progressed to a lot of other interesting bits. I think a typical film would have used those 5 minutes as the climax of an otherwise “filled-in” 2-hour feature film.
The characters and plot are both fun but also really deep. As the plot evolves, you can tell there are a lot of Christian undertones, and the concept of Angels, God and human meaning begins to really take the front stage. At the same time, there is a lot of comic relief related to penguins, nudes and sexual insinuations.
Overall, this film is a 5/5 for me on every single front and I can’t wait to keep watching the series.