I had very low expectations, and the trailer didn’t help. But I actually liked the movie way more than I thought I would.
The story was simple, but not simplistic, even the glitter part that made me cringe when I was watching the trailer made sense in context. The characters and VAs performances were pretty good. The attention to detail, both visually and story-wise, was surprisingly great.
I’ve never watched MLP for the jokes, but this movie had a couple that made me chuckle. The double nod and bop bits were brilliant, some of the running gags worked pretty well. The songs were decent too. But is it bad that Sprout’s song was my favorite one? I usually like the references that MLP makes, and this movie really provided. Sometimes it event felt excessive, to be honest. Also, it’s a bit weird that ponies know what bologna is.
Some things that bothered me: cutie marks were only on one flank and often barely visible (did ponies evolve over the time period that passed since G4?); magic is now somehow connected to some random crystals; no non-pony sentient species were present, and the number of ponies seemed kind of low. Many people are also bothered with the whole “ponies are separated” premise, but to me it seems like a relatively recent development, judging by the posters in the pegasi city. What didn’t bother me was the final transformation, because it was to be expected.
Now I need to rewatch it to see more little details and pay closer attention to background ponies.