Surprisingly incoherent and boring

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

A simple mechas vs. aliens story like we've seen dozens of times before. A bit too simple, actually - it is short, linear, lacks any real plot twists, and some strange things are left unexplained. The characters and the dialogues are clichéd and sometimes dumb. There are too few characters: in all we see 6 people. The whole Japanese army is 3 pilots and a captain. The aliens are never shown, only their ships. The music is okay but nothing great.The only redeeming features are the quality of the graphics and the one real fight scene in the middle. That, and maybe you could call the captain's appearance a kind of fan service if you're into tough girls in military short skirts.It might worth spending 48 minutes on if you're a mecha fan and you don't expect much, otherwise avoid.