pros
+ great animation and action
+ focus on Ichigo and family
cons
- story lacks in detail but provides a lot of plot holes instead
- predictable, both story and dialogue
- no relation to the original series, despite drawing one at the very beginning (ulquiorra, anyone?)

conclusion: entertainment depends on how much of a die-hard fan you are. action fans may love this, but that's about the only strong point of this movie. blame the time limit, but they could have done a lot better than this, especially in terms of plot and dialogue. no detail, generic dialogue, a predictable plot and the holes... (spoiler? they forgot chad when returning from hell... and that's only one example). i liked bleach, but this for me personally is the worst out of the four movies. decent fight scenes, but that's about it.

peace. (show less)

Warning first, don’t download the file subbed by “Team Akatsuki” – the subs are hilariously incomprehensible. Somebody seems to have gotten their hands on the script and shoved the whole thing into Google Translator. (Seriously, what or who else can translate Renji as “Mrs. Oven”?!?)

Anyway, review-wise – “The Hell Verse” starts off quite promising, but quickly goes downhill. The story is easy to follow, but rather predictable at the same time and, sadly, rather rushed and inconsistent. You get to learn about Hell in the Bleach universe, which so far was mentioned only in a few episodes. Now that in itself would be awesome; weren’t there the plot holes. Example? /SPOILER WARNING/ How can Sinners escape from Hell without being chased? How come they’re chased only when they’re injured? And that’s just part of the questions left open in the end. /SPOILER END/ The plot would need a whole lot of details not given due to lack of time. Plus, there’s basically no time for a decent buildup of tension, making the whole thing feel like a rather rushed release.

The relation to the anime itself is badly done. If you ignore the first two minutes, you can watch this as any other movie as a filler and addition to the storyline – and you’ll be fine. However, those first two minutes draw a direct relation to the fight between Ichigo and Ulquiorra, which in turn left me personally waiting for another relation for the duration of the full movie, since there is no other relation. There are a few allusions to the Soul Society arc, yes, but that one was long over when Ulquiorra entered the picture in the original anime. The possible relation left me wondering what was going on. *sweatdrops* The recycled scene didn’t make sense to me other than for drawing watchers in. That might be my quest to have things make sense though.

Quite unlike the other movies, “The Hell Verse” focuses on Ichigo and his care for his family. You won’t get to see many people from Soul Society, but you will get to see characters a tad out of their usual character (I faintly remember Inoue hugging Ichigo out of nowhere *coughs*). The villains are kept flat, lacking a real background and motivation, making them pretty clichéd. Blame the time limit, but they could have done so much better than this.

There’s not just a movie-exclusive villain but also a movie-exclusive power for Ichigo, which – compared to the other Bleach movies – might be a nice change of pace. Speaking of Ichigo, however, he seems more dumb than usually. I wonder who else would believe a Sinner that just escaped from Hell (me definitely not).

The dialogue is average; spiced up with some “big bro talk” but generally not all that different from the usual series; nothing you haven’t really heard before.

The animation, however, is good indeed. This movie focuses on fighting instead of plot, providing its viewers with nonstop action. There’s some drama/friendship mixed into this, but mostly, it’s action, and action only. The art is high definition, though I can’t help but feel like Kubo-san could have been more creative with Hell (frankly spoken, to me it looked like Hueco Mundo dyed red… but perhaps that’s just me *sighs*). However, the music is finely done and fits the scenes. The sounds, in turn, sometimes annoyed the hell out of me (pun unintended). I don’t have anything against screams in anime, but once the crew enters Hell, there is a scream in average every 20 seconds of which you don’t even know where it came from. That went on for a few minutes till I turned the audio on mute (and I’d advise anyone who can’t stand that to do so too, quite frankly).

For an action-only fan, or a Bleach fan that can’t miss a single episode, this movie most probably is enjoyable. However, don’t expect too much in terms of plot or character development (I was - and that was the mistake). Yes, the animation is high definition, and yes, you’ll definitely get your fill of badass action, but the plot severely lacks. IMO a lot more could have been made out of this had there been more time for the release. (show less)

Okay, well I'm somewhat of a Bleach fan, been watching every single ep and every movie. After watching this movie...I can conlcude that the rankings from best to worst starting off with the best is the 3rd movie, 4th movie, 2nd movie, 1st movie (even though the ending made me cry).
Story: heh heh heh...not much of a story. Sure, we're introduced to Hell, something that Bleach hasn't covered much in the anime. It was interesting seeing the inside, but honestly, that interest quickly dimished. The plot isn't that solid...if there was any. Basically the whole point is the two evil guys want Ichigo to help them be free from Hell...yup that just about covers the entire movie. I mean its pretty obvious that the guy betrays Ichigo because it was shown in the trailer before the movie came out, so don't be all pissed that I gave away a spoiler. What really sucked was the the 1st antagonist didn't really get much talking time....I mean he was just the dude who kidnapped Ichigo's sister, nothing really else important about him, they didn't give him a backstory. Now the sexy white-haired antagonist...shame it had to end that way for him...they didn't do a good job with his script, which will be explained later. But honestly, the only back story he was given in the entire movie was that he was sent to hell because he killed the guy who killed his sister, so like what, that automatically makes him and Ichigo buddies or something?
Dialouge: No character developement at all. The new characters shown basically do nothing with the plot except fight and be crazy. White haired antagonist...they trusted him too much. I mean honestly, they should have interogated him or something instead of locking arms and skipping their merrily way down to hell together. One important thing, they really made Ichigo over confident in this movie...I mean really. Especially one of his final lines when he defeats the white haired guy. Ichigo has no right to say (not the exact quote) "This is your judgment for betraying hell....blah, blah, blah." That line is too important for a character of his level, I mean that line what typically be said by someone like Byakuya.Oh yeah...speaking of which, the returning soul reapers with the exception of Rukia and Renji are all side characters, what was the point of even bringing them? IDK, probably there's still a lot of Toshiro perverts out there that wanted to see the stautory boy on screen.
Animation: Really good is all I have to say....though honestly the 3rd movie fight scenes were WAY better. Though I'm the only one thinking it but...the hollows looked ALOT better with their cloaks on, I mean, they looked pretty cool. But as soon as they took off their clothes -_-....I'm not impressed. 4th movie and the antagonist had to be butt ugly hollows.
Entertainment: Some might find it entertaining while others might not. Depends on how much of a die-hard fan you are. If anything, this movie makes you think at the end....what the hell is up with the skull armor Ichigo has? I mean, they don't even give it a name, and Ichigo only uses it to attack like once. Even Ichigo says when Rukia asks him what's up with the armor "I don't know?" *bashes my head through the wall* Was there even a point to bringing that thing up if no one is even going to name it? That armor better be shown in the manga later on, because if not, then it would be completely pointless.
In the end, I liked this movie...only liked, didn't say I loved it. So I hope you found this review enlightening and mature, honestly all my reviews are like this. I'm not biased and I cover all aspects of the spectrum. (show less)

After Fade to Black, overall the best Bleach movie, I think I might have set my expectations too high.
This whole thing is the usual 'rescue and destroy everything else' with a not so surprising twist of 'epic new power' as the Japanese are very good at spoiling their films in advance.
The dialogues are stereotypical, the same 'I'll save [insert any name of the past, present ans future here]'. OK, this time it's spiced up with some 'big bros' talk, but it is still just as weak.
The quality fluctuates between very bad (I'll forever have nightmares of Renji's bottle cap head - Thank you guys on CAPSLOCK BLEACH) and really good (the first few minutes are cool), though a bit more on the negative side. Almost as if it was a badly made filler arc, like the Bounto or the Reigai ones.
What came out of this mess of a movie was a really substandard production. Not interesting enough to watch a second or third time. The best part of it was and still is it's soundtrack. A masterpiece that somehow got paired up with this limping film.
The more than half a year of excitement died down around halfway through the movie. Though if you watch it with the first subs that came out you could have some really good laughs. Those will probably enter the subbing history as the funniest messed up Google translations. (show less)