I do agree with others you may have seen, that are critiquing this film for falling back on old Precure tropes, that is correct of them to say, and fair. However, there are still great elements here, as the reviewers also will tell you. In short, I completely understand why people would have a mixed response, but for me, the great elements outweigh the bad. As a start, the good. Since there is substantial good here, when this is a kickass film about Idol Precure getting stranded on a mysterious time locked island, full of animal and plant people residents, and plenty of supernatural eventsand zombie jellyfish!
Uta, the Cure Idol herself, is written Wanderful here, as are the rest of the Idol Precure, in particular I loved how the mysterious displaced in time element of the island was utilized in order to really make the main Idol Precure members feel split up and broken apart, and then see them create bonds that we didn't get much of in the main series (such as having Uta and Meroron seperated from the rest of the group, was genius!) I love the way that the girls slowly discover the mystery and the darkness of the plot, while having to fight off these zombie jellyfish (the jellyfish were also really cool as upon being slain, they turned into tiny little creatures, which resembles the Zakenna of early Futari Wa Precure from 2004. Always love to see the baddies turn into tiny creatures and run away. It is also very retro-gamey feeling if that makes any sense lol. The songs are also amazing! Lots of new original songs by Idol Precure, and because this is a crossover we also get Idol Precure covering some Precure's songs from previous seasons. Zero complaints with the visuals either, well directed all the way through, they don't even have to use CGI monsters like Otona Precure did. Nope, 2d animated fights, 2d hand drawn baddies.
The main plot and Uta's befriending of new movie exclusive characters was all compelling, adding weight to the fight scenes, as we felt fear for the new movie exclusive characters, felt pity for them as Uta wanted to resolve things with the movie exclusive characters
The credits sequence, while largely just raising my attention to the fact that the crossover element barely led to any interaction between the different crossing over groups, did have one benefit: This credits sequence, without a doubt, still effectively provided fan service (and I mean fan service in regards to what this show means by it, pleasing the fans), because the credits sequence showed really cute interactions between all of the crossing over characters (both the main Precure groups and even the mascots/fairies.. Which actually includes many of the group members since many of them are fairies lollll). My absolute favorite part is that they even found a way to integrate the side characters of Wonderful Precure and You And Idol, that being Tanaka (a fairy and manager who is generally there for support) and Mey Mey (an utterly... fascinating queer coded fairy who dressed up in dresses several times during Wonderful Precure, and acted very friendly around guys of the same gender as him). These scenes were utterly adorable to me since I do love these side characters and it is nice that the filmmakers remembered them. This does not make up for the criticism that I totally agree with though, that nearly everything outside of this credits sequence is basically just You And Idol Precure, so aside from this credit sequence and the fight scenes, the crossover element does feel a bit eye brow raising. A very solid film that I also understand the critiques for.
