Interesting read, Triple_R, since you managed to bring up points never discussed in this thread, and thus you seeing this movie was a good thing.
As for the visuals, I saw a massive jump in quality, at least for animation. It's very, very fluid and contains a lot more movements than the tv show during fights. Well, except those stills during the Nanoha/Fate fight, that whole fight was a letdown in both, I felt; good, but missing something.
That being said, due to the change of the aesthetics and character designs, it might not have looked as good as it could. Then again, I usually don't separate animation and other stuff in the visuals category.
I suppose Nanoha looks too shiny, like she accidentally swapped outfits with a Starcraft 2 Protoss unit. >.>
I actually didn't like the tv series part after Fate falls into the water too much. Mainly because when Nanoha asks Fate "are you okay?" I burst out laughing. (You just nuked her, is that a rhetorical question?
)
Chrono's entrance is probably the most unique point I've noted in this thread. That's a good point, Chrono has always been shafted much as we go along, though not as badly as Yuuno.
Loli tits.... ugh. And I was trying to show my friends that this is not a pedo show! :// They seemed to have cleaned up it everywhere but there.
Vs. Precia.... yea they never thought of that very well did they.
But yea, I was pretty disappointed due to most of your cons (plus the Fate salvation scene at the lab's collapse being cut) , though like you I managed to derive quite a bit of entertainment from it. I do feel the movie seemed to work better for those that weren't large fans of the first season. (If you did like season 1, you might have felt that this wasn't that necessary. Plus lack of certain details can be frustrating. )
Which is why I hope A's movie will be different this time around, since most people into this are probably not in need of remaking or 'correcting" A's.