So Eva finally has all new content and goes back to its roots of having more of a psychological aspect. Unfortunately it's probably the weakest out of the 3 Rebuild movies so far (but I liked it). I'm glad they aren't neglecting the psychological portion of Eva. It was good, but nowhere near as deep as the original's storytelling. I had a problem with the pacing and the BD release of 3.33 could've fixed some of it. I was expecting at least a flashback or two, but I assume they wanted us to relate to Shinji's situation by experiencing what changed over 14 years for the first time. I wasn't a total fan of the large timeskip, but I kind of like it now. It's a large enough gap that people have already adapted to the changes of the near-Third Impact and to show the age difference between the age of the pilots compared to everyone else.
People seem to hate the whole "Curse of Eva" thing, but I thought it was interesting. Especially since it's hinting as if the Eva pilots have transcended humans and are like a 19th angel. Even Asuka referred to humans as Lilin at the end of the movie. Still not a total fan of beast mode or whatever for the other pilots, but hopefully it'll serve some purpose.
I know there are a lot of Shinji haters, and they probably despised him in this one. The whole movie was him crashing down to a new low after the events of 2.22. He thought he did the right thing and now people hate him for it since it killed almost everyone, and now he almost caused a 4th Impact. Him ignoring the others about pulling the spears felt dumb at first. But then I realized he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown at that point. Kaworu finally persuaded him to pilot Unit 13 after much objection and after everyone telling him to stop when he was told it was the right thing to do, I can understand why he felt confused. I'm surprised Shinji was able to just control the Eva anyways since I thought both pilots had to be synchronized though

. Other than that, I feel like they could've illustrated his breakdown better, but I'm sure it was pointless since people were going to hate Shinji anyways.
A lot are complaining that they didn't like how the other characters treated Shinji at the start, but I thought it made sense. Even though everyone cheered for Shinji to do what he wanted in 2.22's ending, it makes sense they hated him afterwards, even Misato. I haven't rewatched 2.22 in awhile, and I'm pretty sure she and others didn't know Shinji was going to trigger the 3rd Impact. She's probably acting cold at Shinji because she blames herself for it, she did have trauma over the 2nd Impact, and she wasn't sure if that was the real Shinji or an Angel. There's also the fact that she's pretty bad at comforting people in normal ways.
Asuka meeting Shinji after all those years was great. Seeing Unit 01's eye after she calls out for Shinji and also how pissed she was after she sees him, I liked it. The way she acted I thought made sense, because of what happened in the last ending of Rebuild.
One big complaint I had in this movie was that Mari still hasn't shown her importance. The only thing that might've been important was the photo in the middle of the movie. While I'm pretty sure it was Asuka's mother, she resembled Mari, so Asuka and Mari could be related.
Another was what they did for Kaworu in this movie. I felt like Kaworu was a much better character in the original, even though he had barely any screen time. I liked how well they introduced that character in such a short time compared to 3.33. 3.33, his death and purpose was similar to the TV series, but his scenes weren't as powerful or meaningful. They said that Kaworu was going to be introduced early and change things up, so I was expecting something more out of him. His portrayal in this was just weak, imo.
Movie brought up mostly new questions without answers. Things I'm going to assume are that the Rei has fused into Unit 01 like Yui has and Spear of Cassius is in Wunder since it impaled Unit 01. Things I'm' confused over is why the Third Impact made things a red desert. I don't know if it's not LCL because Rebuild wanted to be different, if it's because the Impact was stopped, some of Kaworu's words, and if the Evas in Tokyo 3 are all people. Stuff I want to know is why there are two Spears of Longinus, what Kaji is doing, why Rebuild likes changing names for their characters, and who died and who didn't in the 3rd Impact. I'm not sure if the people that lived only lived because they were close to Unit 01 or if they had the will to live and rejected Human Instrumentality. It shouldn't be the latter since Gendo is still here, but maybe he knew it wasn't the one he wanted (since everything goes according to his plans).
So yeah, the bad was the pacing and psychological content being done not as well as it shouldn't have been and the art wasn't as good I was expecting. The good, more Asuka, psychological Eva, and Touji's sister was a nice surprise.
The Rebuild movies are interesting, since I appreciate the different take on it, and I'm not expecting it as a replacement of the original. I like how 2.22 led you to believe that the healthy mental state of the characters would bring about a happy outcome, but instead in multiple events, something prevents them from what they desire or an even worse thing happens. I don't know what to rate it, especially since it was originally planned to have the 3rd and 4th movies be released close to each other, so this was mainly a setup. And a problem I noticed (for newcomers) in Rebuild is how they introduce things. With time constraints, it's either about counting on the viewer to have watched the TV series, not going over some info, and telling the viewer flat out instead of a subtle way.
I have to say, I really liked the final scene of the movie, with the 3 pilots walking in the red desert. I'm hoping 4.0/4.44 will blow me away. Make it controversial like EoE or something, I just want it to live up to expectations. Shame it'll probably be years until that happens.
As of right now, my ranking goes 2 > 1 > 3, but they all had their weaknesses. 2 made the characters fall into anime stereotypes, and some of the events weren't too Eva-like (but I liked how this sets up the dramatic change for 3). 1 felt close to the original, but maybe too much, but that's not a bad thing either. 3, it felt like we were missing a good chunk of info, but the mood of the post apocalyptic world was great.
tl;dr Movie's going to get a ton of hate, but I liked what it was aiming for and its theme. It lacked what the original had for its deep moments and felt like an odd mix of the original and Rebuild, but it was still good.