Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance

Label:

Manga Entertainment

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD or Blu-Ray

Discs:

1.

Running time:

107 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 5.1 (DVD version)

Sound:

English 6.1, Japanese 6.1 (Blu-Ray version)

Release date:

20th June 2011

DVD RRP:

£17.99 - Amazon - Play

Blu-Ray RRP:

£22.99 - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

Evangelion Pilots Rei Syanami and Shinji Ikari are joined by fellow pilot Asuka Langley Shikinami, who proceeds to defeat the newest angelic threat to Tokyo III on a solo sortie. And she doesn’t just do it alone, oh no, this pilot also does it with style, flair and above all, passion. But as the Angel threat grows ever larger, are these three enough to defend humanity against the Third Impact and the end of the world as we know it?

Comments:

OK, so here we are for the second of the four Evangelion “reboot” movies and while the first movie (our review of which can be found here) tried it’s best to stay true to the original TV show with most of the rebooty (is that even a word?) differences being just cosmetic – well, up until the last few minutes at least - this second movie seems to take great delight in showing that everything you thought was “true” about Evangelion is about to be thrown right out of the window faster than you can say “but that’s not how it’s supposed to happen!”. But that’s not to say that it’s a completely brave new world here, no, there's enough scenes carbon-copied from the show and then given major visual upgrades to make you go “squee” and then a whole bunch more new sequences to make you go “squee” all over again.

While the characters are all still recognisable as the collection of emotional screw-ups Eva fans have come to love (and/or hate) they’re just not as off the scale as they previously were, reflecting this reboots focus being more on crafting a series of action movies rather than the show’s thrust as being a psychological exploration drama disguised as a giant mecha vs monster of the week effort. The personality problems are still there, they’ve just not been turned up to eleven and then left to simmer like before. Rei’s still emotionally stunted but she’s opening up slowly, Shinji’s still a bit of a wimp but at least his backbone’s at least in the same building as him most of the time and Gendo’s still a neglectful bastard but at least he’s a slightly more human bastard this time. Actually, Gendo being slightly more personable than before actually works in this movie’s favour as it makes his more callous and ruthless behaviour later on even more difficult to stomach. And for all those Shinji/Asuka shippers out there… looks like it ain’t happening, what with Wondergirl’s cracker of a head-start this time around.

Taking over the helm from the big man Hideo Anno himself, is Kazurya Tsurumaki, who previously directed a number of episodes of the TV series, and with this movie he seems to be revelling in showing us scenes that we think are going to play out the way they did before, and then pulling the rug out from under the audience whilst yelling “gotcha” like some kind of demented Noel Edmonds. Asuka still gets her big entrance though, taking down a Angel single handed in her first appearance, and it’s the major differences in her character (and plug suit – being a movie rather than a TV show, the censors have pretty much been told to take a hike) over the course of the film - as well as the addition of an enigmatic new Eva pilot in the (rather curvy) shape of Mari Makinami Illustrious - that really trumpets to the world early on that while the first movie was happy to just follow the TV show, this version of the Evangelion story is definitely it’s own person… err… movie and is going in some new and exciting directions. And towards the end of the movie, boy, does it ever go start to blaze it’s own trail.

But before I go; back in the Evangelion 1.11 review, I talked about the animation and how much it had improved on the TV show - and with over ten years of a head start and a shed load of extra money behind it, I would certainly hope so – and while this second movie is visually superior to it’s predecessor, this time I’ve just got to mention the music which - like the animation - is strikingly similar to the original but it’s all had that little bit of extra magic worked on it. You’ll hear a lot of pieces that you think you know, but then a new arrangement or orchestral piece will kick in and it’ll just soar away to a whole new level. Great stuff.

Extras:

There’s plenty of these to get through. There’s a audio commentary by a large number of the dub cast, deleted scenes, a “making of” for many of the computer generated sequences, an alternate version of the ending and a whole host of the original Japanese trailers and TV spots.

Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance will be available on both DVD and Blu-Ray from most high streets and online retailers from 20th June 2011. Best of all, it’s also available as a collector edition which contains both the DVD and Blu-Ray versions as well as a 20 page booklet for the roughly same price as just the Blu-Ray edition. You can find this version here and here. A trailer can be found on Manga UK's official website here.