The first part of the movie was pretty impressive, and was quick to get to the action. A bit too quick, and I really wish her family had some lines, as one of the main points was that Nanoha was just a normal, well adjusted girl which contrasted with Fate that didn't have a loving family. Interestingly, Raising Heart basically becomes its own character, and much more user friendly. It even offers to let Nanoha run the install program and guides her to make everything work, instead of letting Nanoha randomly guess; definitely a better plan.
Unfortunately, that reduces Yuuno's role a lot, and he's mostly on the sidelines to the end. The overall interaction between Nanoha and Yuuno is just weakened. And of course, the quicker conflict between Nanoha and Arisa also shafts Nanoha's development by a bit, and overall her motivation for reaching out to Fate is a bit weakened.
On the other hand, we see that Nanoha really didn't get everything handled to her on a silver platter. With the help of Raising Heart, her natural talent quickly turns her into the WMD that she is now. It's also way more stressful for her, as she really does get hurt badly in her first confronation with Fate. She almost spends all her time doing Magical girl stuff and it really gets to her that she is meeting such stiff resistance this time.
My fears of explicit neekid loli transformation scenes were overblown; it's mostly standard Nanoha fare, and also much quicker so you couldn't really see anything unless you were really looking for it in the first place.
Fate of course gets a lot of more development with the additional backstory, and more thoughts from her side. Particularly beneficial is her relationship with Arf; Arf comes across as even more protective of Fate. While the rushed nature of the movie meant many of the scenes moved quicker, in the case of the one where Arf angrily charges at Precia because she can't take Fate being abused anymore is more effective.
The middle of the movie has a few pacing issues where it just seems like Nanoha's almost just running everywhere to meet Fate and fight. This happens in the TV show too, but the lack of proper transition hurts. The tone is also extremely serious, and the comedy is misisng. The BGM is of course better but one notable place where they should have kept the old BGM at least (instead of no BGM) is that funny scene where Nanoha realizes Yuuno's true form; it just wasn't as funny here.
Precia's abuse of Fate doesn't take much time, but it's also faster and to the point. While it is less brutal, it's also less over the top and drives home the point that Fate's mind is quite broken. While Precia's backstory does get expanded, I didn't really feel sympathetic for her even though I understand it more. Which is a good thing-- she is obviously a crazy bitch despite her motivation. She's much less one-dimensional here than in the TV show.
They play wii? Lol product placement.
The scenes where Fate must physically secure the Jewel seed and the one where they have to work together are pretty well reproduced; a good amount of emotion put into there. In general, a lot of good Fate/Arf moments.
The final battle with Fate was kind of a mixed bag. It was pretty cool to have Fate appear behind Nanoha, but that flashback was pretty disruptive in the fight. Perhaps if they did it in bits and pieces, it'd be better. It is of course a much better fight overall, and the term "aerial mages" really makes sense now. I would have liked Nanoha to take more damage, though. Her armor was a bit screwed up, but she didn't really seem that hurt after taking that wallop from Fate.
The next part was pretty good. Precia finishing off the poor nameless mages and telling Fate to fuck off was pretty brutal here. The scene with Fate waking up and going back to action was really good we get a deeper introspection here. At this point Fate is less dependent on her mother then in the series and doesn't need as much saving here.
The rest is pretty much the same as the series, not that it's a bad thing, but could it have killed them to have Chrono do more. One thing interesting is that Nanoha blasts in early, and also Fate doesn't need saving. So she's recovering a bit faster; perhaps that's what the increased frequency of meeting Nanoha does.
On the other hand, I could probaly say that Arf plays a big role in this too.
The bridge scene is great, just as emotional as the first time I've seen it. The credits roll shows everyone moving on, nice but where's Nanoha's family?
But in any case, despite all the cuts it still keeps the emotions of the first season.
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