Review of Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo

Evangelion is a complex work; the television series challanged the dimensions of the anime world by creating a dark, world where not everything is told to the viewer. Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone and 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance were somtimes viewed as not following this trend, showing us just about everything. Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo changes all that. Story: Fourteen years have passed since the climatic moments of 2.0; this is not the world Shinji Ikari remembers. Many things have changed, and Shinji is left very much like the viewer; completely and utterly confused. I'll be fair; Evangelion is well known for having astory that baffles the casual viewer; however, 3.0 takes this idea way too far. We know very little about what exactly is going on during the story, or why they are happening. The ideas and motivations of characters are not thoroughly explained, and the viewer is left unbeknownst to whatever the hell is going on.
As I said, I will be fair to this movie; there is still a fourth move coming, and that may answer some questions that are lingering in our minds, but until those questions are (if they are) explained, the story remains the weakest portion of 3.0.

Art and Sound: Easily the highlight of the film. As compared tot he relatively colorful animation of 1.0 and 2.0, Redo shows off a much darker world then the one we left years ago; the world is dark and shadowed, and great clouds cover the skies. This is truly a world descending into hell, and whilst I usually hate darkly drawn anime, this is easily the best of them.
The music, of course, is perfect as usual. Sweep orchestral tracks fills this film, giving the movie a large sense of scale that only the greatest of anime films could muster. The music is at lest on par with 2.0, which was truly excellent.

Character: Another aspect of the film that suffers compared to the other two films; characters in 3.0 are very different to when they were seen in 2.0, in particular characters such as Rei and Misato. Normally, I would have no problem with this, but the issue stands that their ideals and motivations are not throughraly explained. Again, when 4.0 rolls around, they may be explained, but until then, this simply is to large a problem to ignore.

Overview: In closing, Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo is not a bad film at all; it's still very good. However, the story and character issues are simply to large an issue to ignore, but does not detract horribly from the film. Hopefully with 4.0 somewhere on the horizon all of my (and all the other Evangelion fans) questions will be answered, and the conclusion of The Rebuld of Evangelion will wrap up all of the issues everyone has had with the series.