Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Tiro Finale. This weekend I finally got the opportunity to watch the Code Geass move in the theaters, so here's my two cents on the film. If you want a spoiler free summary: "It's a fanservice movie. If you like Code Geass, you will like the movie for what it is, just don't in expecting any new favourite moments to top the original."

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection is a sequel to the three "recap" movies that preceded it, which puts it in a slightly different continuity than the original series, which means (a) there will be minor differences for series only watchers (not much though), and (b) it can be taken to have no actual bearing on the canonical end of the main series, which is likely the intent here. And that second point is going to factor heavily into what I will say later.

So, plot wise, the events of the movie take place primarily in a fictional Middle eastern country which prospered in the preceding decades of war a with their highly skilled mercenary forces, and were let's say, put into hard times after the Zero Requiem.Without spoiling too much, they will play the main antagonists of the movie, and come with a particularly potent power (and plot!) of their own, which is to be expected, given anything less would be pointless against the ludicrous combination of Black Knights, Britannia, Suzaku, Kallen, Scnheizel, Cornelia, and Zero. This problem of making a worthy antagonist was always going to be a problem given the state of the world at the end of R2, but what they did here was still fresh and interesting enough to carry itself, and resolution to it was pretty clever.

Production-wise, its a competently made, movie-grade animated film. Other than the less Clamp-like (skinny-stickmen!) designs, every looks and sounds as it should while bringing a much updated look to the series. As for the new mechs, well... they looks decent enough to sell new merchandise, but the bulkier designs were not quite to my personal liking, your mileage may vary. But more than that, we just didn't get to see much of the more iconic mechs in proper action.

Speaking of which, this brings me to what is causing a lot of trouble to this film. The just under 2 hour runtime is nowhere near enough to properly give enough room for everything they tried to cram into it. Pretty much every returning character gets to play a role in its story, and a lot happens over the span of a single film, plot twists and all. Putting that many characters into an already packed plot means most of them get either cameos or very short character moments to themselves, which might be a be that much of a bad thing for returning characters, but this problem extends to the new antagonists, which other than their leader, all got built up initially only to be sidelined without much development.

And that's the crux of it, other than C.C. and Lelouch (didn't the title give away that he came back?) which the movie primarily focuses on, don't expect any development for any of the other characters. Although, given how everyone already reached the end of their character arcs back in the story it probably isn't that big a deal. 

I can only speculate that a lot of it came down to the originally planned season 3 being changed into this movie as the creators wanted to leave the original story as is. That being the case, all this movie did was maintain the status quo and will not ultimately alter the nature of the previous ending, for better or worse.

The whole thing is pretty much just a long version of the epilogue to what we can easily assume from the original canonical ending, giving us a chance to see what's life like after the Zero Requiem , seeing the cast give one last hurrah, and provide final closer to C.C. and Lelouch's story. And if that's what you want, the film is going to give you just that, and does it well enough.

In conclusion, if what you are looking for is more Code Geass, the movie is enjoyable enough to warrant the watch. It is unashamedly a fanservice film and wears it on its sleeve, just don't assume it will be a game-changer. Its a decent send off, but by no means a mandatory watch. People who don't already like the series can safely give it a miss.