This was a different kind of Doraemon movie, one that attempts to dive into some philosophical themes, pretty rare for the Mizuta-era Doraemon movies that tend to stick to "child-friendly" topics like growing up and friendship. But the movie's execution was a little weak due to the characters mainly being used as plot points without enough exploration of their personalities and how they fit into the narrative. A striking disappointment was how Gian, Suneo, and Shizuka uniformly went through their change in the movie. Although their change was crucial in explaining the overall conflict, it almost felt like maybe only one of them neededto be there, or maybe none of them needed to be there and let one of the guest characters go through that change instead. The movie did not ever explore any of Gian's, Suneo's, or Shizuka's internal conflicts even though there was an obvious opportunity to do so. As a result, their transformation during the movie felt completely shallow.

The guest characters were also difficult to connect with. Sonya was the best attempt in this movie, but even his past could have been explored a little more too. I didn't understand how/why Hanna and Marimba were in Utopia and how they knew each other. The villains ahead of their mastermind were totally hollow and did not need to be there. The ending coincidences were really cool at the surface, but they did little to nothing to enhance the narrative; they were simply eye-candy and only that.

Throughout, there were so many opportunities to simplify the story to make room for more character development that would have ultimately made the philosophical theme in the movie so much more attractive.