Review of Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Despite anticipating a twist with the way they ended Evangelion: You Can (Not) Advance, I never would have suspected this film to play out the way that it did. A time-hop 14 years into the future? Shinji caused the third impact? Unit 1 was made into a freaking air ship! Misato, Ritsuke, and most of NERV broke off from Gendo to form WILLE to fight against what's left of NERV to prevent them from causing the Fourth Impact. And poor Shinji waking up as lost as the audience is thrown into this post-post apocalyptic world being used as a pawn by Gendo for a purposethat will have to be revealed in the next movie.

Even though the movie essentially completed the entire Kaworu storyline in a similar manner to how episode 24 of Neon Genesis Evangelion did it, and the film has set us up for what should be the next End of Evangelion with Shinji being the catalyst for the fourth impact, this film just seems radically different from what we've seen in the EVA universe. And that is why the film is so divisive. Isn't it funny how everyone in NGE hated Shinji for not being decisive and making decisions when asked upon and now in this retelling when Shinji does make a decision, everyone still hates him? Poor Shinji. The world is unfair to you.

I typically only give 9/0 star ratings to films that I consider to be amongst the best of their respective genres, or movies that I consider classics or influential in some way, but I was really tempted to give this film that same respect even though it doesn't fall under any of those categories above. And the reasoning for that is because You Can (Not) Redo is so ambitious and went in a direction that I did not anticipate taking Evangelion into while still feeling like an Evangelion episode but with a big budget and this time with good CGI. This is a "big" film. Meaning the special effects are top notch. The sound editing is top of the line. And the fate of the world as always is hanging in the balance. But that doesn't stop the film from going all-in on Shinji and Kaworu's friendship and having them play the piano while we and Shinji are left in the dark as to what is going on. Once everything is revealed, it leaves us with more questions and once again in awe of Gendo's brilliance.

I am super excited for whenever part 4 is released and have loved the rebuild series as a whole. With luck, the fourth film will answer the remaining questions that linger and will rival End of Evangelion in terms of it's brutality and ambitiousness.

8/10