I'm gonna be comparing some things to season 1 as it's pretty much unavoidable, but I'm also gonna judge this movie on its own merit as it is mostly self-contained.

Spoilers... naturally.

Season 1 of Chainsaw Man took the world by storm (minus Japan), but it is a somewhat departure from Fujimoto's style. So within the first 5 minutes of the movie, it IMMEDIATELY feels closer to Fujimoto's style and is a different take, but a welcome one. The most noticeable change is the art style. More vibrant colours compared to the muted tones of Season 1 and the characters got a minor redesign. The voice acting also got better. Toya Kikunosuke feels like a more realised version of Denji, Power is a ball of energy whenever she shows up, Kusunoki Tomori as Makima still has that unsettling calm to her and Sakata Shougo as Aki does bring out a more softer side to the character after the events of season 1. Newcomer to the series Ueda Reina is why we're here tho. Her being cast as the titular Reze was PERFECT casting and pretty much how I would hear Reze's lines while reading the manga. Soft and gentle, but also assertive when it needs be.

The first half of the movie is a massive standout. Mappa does bring in talent and Yoshihara Tatsuya's hand in directing these quieter character moments is fucking incredible. It's reminiscence of currently Hollywood heavy weights like Denis Villeneuve and Chris Nolan and it shows. There are some nods to Fujimoto's love of Hollywood cinema and if you can pick them out, it's a nice easter egg. The animation in the first half is kinda jank, but I can forgive that cuz everything is done with so much care put in to it.

The soundtrack is... okay I guess. The theatre I watched it in didn't have the best sound, so I can only base it off of that and it was fine and served its purpose. Yonezu Kenshi's contribution to the Chainsaw Man roster still hurts my throat when he tries to go all Lewis Capaldi, but whatever.

And then... the second half happened. The fights happened. I will admit, most of the action was really well-choreographed, well-paced and easy to follow. And then the Typhoon Devil showed up and I IMMEDIATELY mentally checked out from the movie. I'm sure if you loved the action animation in JJK's Shibuya arc, you'll absolute love it. Maybe because I've been spoiled by the Demon Slayer movie that came out prior or maybe I have a higher standard, but holy GOD did the animation in that fight take a massive drop in quality. I'm not exaggerating when I say it literally looks like random shapes on screen. At a point, when Denji was basically using Beam to dodge projectiles, it looks like that fused into one massive blob. That fight was incredibly poorly animated and idk how it got past QA, but then again, this is Mappa, so I'm not surprised, just disappointed.

TLDR: It's a really good time with incredible direction (I can't praise the first half enough), but the latter half did suffer from Mappa being Mappa.