With a plot full of holes like Swiss cheese, setting and setup that will confuse even the staunchest long-time fans, script on the level of a bad fan fiction, countless disrepancies and abandoned plot lines from the first two movies and characterization taking 180-degree turns every two seconds, Evangelion 3.0 is an utter mess at best, and an open insult to movie watchers at worst. It's a colossal failure as its own story, as a follow-up, as a remake and a movie in general that renders the previous two movies and all their accomplishments completely pointless.
Almost nothing from the previous films is resolved in any meaningful way: Shinji's relationships with his friends and slowly growing confidence, Kaji's shady dealings with NERV, the Key of Nebuchadnezzar, Rei coming out of her shell, Asuka warming up to people, the growing threat of Angel attacks and much more are completely abandoned and forgotten about. In their place we get an endless barrage of new terms and plot elements which the characters talk about, but none of which are ever adequately explained or established. The first 30 minutes consist of nothing but action scenes with only the tiniest amount of context or setup, just a bunch of flashy stuff for the viewer to look at.
The characters have taken a total nosedive. Mari, who had a strange foreboding about her in 2.0 is reduced to a mere sidekick with no meaning. Despite the 14-year gap, Asuka is still her old bratty self despite now being 28 years old. The justification for her and Mari not having aged is so ridiculous you have to wonder if the writers are actually pulling a prank. Misato is so far removed from her previous persona she might as well be an entirely new character. Rei's character actually regresses, as all her development from the previous movies is rendered nonexistent, and is never properly explained how. Gendo has become a caricature of himself. In the original series he had an enigmatic presence and there were hints of his deeper motives, but here there's nothing under the surface: he's just a cartoon villain, practically twirling his moustache and cackling "JUST AS PLANNED".
But the change of setting is undoubtedly the thing that shoots this film in the leg and then some. So many questions rise and are never answered that the viewer is completely lost. The last 20 minutes will be spent in utter confusion as the viewer tries to grasp even the flimsiest straw of what is supposed to be going on, and why it should mean anything. Bombastic music playing over certain scenes is the only signal of something meaningful happening, but since the setting is so unestablished the viewer is just left thinking "I guess that's important because the characters act like it is, but why should I care?"
Perhaps the only saving qualities of this film are the music and the animation, both of which are great and work to put together some rather impressive action scenes. But that makes it only so much worse when you think what other projects this clearly great amount of talent could have been used for, rather than this 90-minute fart in the audience's face. At one point Fuyutsuki, the one character who gives the only direct exposition in the film, says "'Tis a wretched role I'm playing" to himself. It's almost if he's meta talking about his character having been reduced to a useless exposition device.
Add to all this meaningless shoutouts to the original like recycled shots from the series and Gendo's new choice of eyewear, occasional pseudo-philosophical lines which don't mean anything and some completely out of place piano playing scenes that add nothing to the story and you have an indulgent, incomprehensible, poorly told, plot less, pretentious, forced mess that doesn't even have a proper ending. Stuff explodes, characters talk about things you don't understand, Shinji sulks, some piano playing, stuff explodes again and then the movie just stops. Nothing has been achieved, learned or accomplished and you just don't care.
