Film: Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 20th June 2011
Distributor: Manga
Certificate: 15
Running time: 107 mins
Director: Hideaki Anno, Masayuki, Kazuya Tsurumaki
Genre: Anime
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Japan
Language: Japanese/German/English
Review by: Mark Player
The highly anticipated second instalment to Hideaki Anno's four part feature film series rebuild of his seminal, mid-90s television series, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance is now available on DVD and Blu-ray through Manga Entertainment.
Set not long after the events of the first film, 14-year-old Shinji Ikari is still conflicted about his supposed destiny; that is: to be an Eva Pilot – towering mechanised cyborg warriors, built to protect Earth from an ongoing invasion of Angels: equally huge and monstrous entities from space that wish to cause apocalyptic destruction. He also has to contend with his estranged father, Gendo Ikari, the director of operations at NERV – the organisation that controls the Eva Units – as well as reach out to his emotionally distant fellow pilot, Rei.
But with the continual threat of more Angel attacks looming, and with each Angel being more powerful and challenging than the last, NERV takes on another pilot; the arrogant and headstrong Asuka, freshly transferred from NERV's European branch. Her presence causes a rift in an already tentative equilibrium between Shinji, Rei and their chaperone/ranking officer, Misato. Things are complicated further by the arrival of a fourth pilot, the mysterious Mari, whose objectives and motives are unknown...
Neon Genesis Evangelion's mythology is so incredibly dense and multilayered that this is now the second time that the series creators are attempting to tell its story – not including the innumerable manga comic spinoffs, or the film that was a re-telling of what many viewers believed to be an unsatisfactory ending to the original series, Neon Genesis: End Of Evangelion (1998) – and as a result, has created a huge world fanbase. Pressure from such a fanbase was partly the inspiration for this reimaging. The first of this new generation of films – dubbed the 'Rebuild of Evangelion' – Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone, released last year, was essentially a condensed and relatively faithful recap of the first third or so of the television series, but brought certain elements forward that weren't originally revealed until later on, as well as offered a complete visual overhaul with state-of-the-art animation techniques. Its sequel, the subject of this review, continues this modus operandi…sort of.
The same basic narrative progression occurs, but in a way that's strangely different. Many of the key events from the series take place here – when Shinji is forced into fighting one of his fellow Eva Units, with the pilot trapped inside, after it’s taken over by an Angel virus, for instance – but are executed with different characters and for different motivational reasons. However, fans of the original show will be blind-sided by how scenarios familiar to them have and will be used to evolve the story towards a drastically different conclusion. Evangelion 2.22 represents that figurative fork in the road. While its predecessor played out in fairly predictable tandem with its source, this film starts to deviate from the original course, and it’s mostly for the better.
The characters feel better drawn, not just in terms of animation – which, by the way, looks very good – but in terms of emotional development. The personalities of the main cast, as well as their relationships with one another, feel much more subtle and smooth, whilst complimenting the existing dynamic quite well. Shinji is comparatively less whiny here, in the same way as Rei is a little more human and Askua less of a brat. Mari, a completely new character created specifically for this 'Rebuild', is an intriguing addition who doesn't get massive amount to do this time around, but whose role will probably become more prominent during the next instalments.
Another interesting addition is the extra detail given to the complex workings of Tokyo 3, a huge fortified cityscape that has the ability to lower its skyscrapers into the ground in the midst of an Angel attack and the story's principle setting. Little titbits like getting a glimpse of the evacuation procedures employed to get citizens to safety or the en-mass cleanup operations required after each conflict, which are as ridiculously destructive as ever, are most welcome and go some way to help overcome occasionally dubious logic issues. Rei's apartment complex remains partially demolished, presumably from a battle in the previous film. Considering the number of buildings that are destroyed in Evangelion on a regular basis, it’s nice to see some aftermath consequence as a result of the battles that are had; a reminder of the homes destroyed and the lives lost.
As for the battles themselves, the main draw for most viewers, they have been completely redone to the point that many of the Angels in this instalment are of new design, and with it comes a new vigour and intensity. Some of the set-pieces are especially savage, with the animators having no qualms over having the city awash in a tsunami of blood, or having gigantic pieces of armour-clad flesh rip through people's houses as they are torn off and tossed away. The general pacing of the story is equally brutal, though not quite up to the hyperbolic speed of the first film, and will likely leave the uninitiated out in the cold with all its talk of AT Fields, LCL Fluid and Dummy Plugs (fortunately, some of the film's terminology is collected in a glossary that features in the accompanying Collector's Edition booklet).
Another factor that may confuse or alienate newcomers is Evangelion's characteristically bizarre tonal shifts: flitting from apocalyptic battles of imposing scope to cerebral psychoanalysis of the main characters; each mentally ill or emotionally distressed in their own way. Similar to the television series, there are many biblical references and religious symbolism interspersed, but, at the same time, the film isn't too lofty or pretentious to have a stab at broad humour – scenes involving Shinji, Asuka and Misato living together in the latter's cramped apartment play out like a weirdly raunchy sit-com. Something that even fans may be puzzled over is the infrequent yet noticeable moments of blatant 'fan service' that find their way in: dubious partial nudity, the occasional and unnecessary up-skirt shot or lingering image of cleavage chip away at an otherwise dignified and excellent re-interpretation of one of anime's most successful and popular franchises.
Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance is most certainly a treat for fans of the series; taking the Neon Genesis story in an interesting direction without desecrating the series that made it so popular to begin with (although there will always be nitpickers). Those who are new will do better by visiting the first film before taking this one on, but if you know what you're getting into, 2.22 offers a dramatic facelift that will leave you wondering how Hideaki Anno and his team are going to proceed next.
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