20 minutes in, and I can already tell that this movie really is damn good. The editing is fantastic. It has the same "feel" that I get from some of Hollywood's high-end, psychological thrillers, and this one puts a LOT of effort into each scene. I particularly like the little montage of Tomoe and Shiki's everyday life and the many other repeating scenes and images used throughout the film thus far.

Will write out my impressions of the movie as I watch it from this point on:

25:09 - Damn, this anime is pretty.
26:57 - The score seems better than in previous movies... or maybe I just wasn't paying much attention before.
29:30 - Holy... And the plot thickens!
36:24 - The best fight scene I've seen in Kara no Kyoukai.
50:00 - There are TONS of small time leaps--both going forward and backwards, it seems. It's a little confusing, but I guess it's meant to be that way.
1:04:32 - Time leaps finally ended. Everything more or less makes sense by the end of this segment. That was probably the most interesting presentation of a dual-sided narrative that I've seen in a long while.
1:12:42 - No. Fucking. Way.
1:32:00 - I was expecting something like this to happen, but damn, it still sucks. :(
1:37:58 - Maaya Sakamoto has never sounded so pimp omfg.
1:40:58 - That is some damn good animation.
1:42:41 - All this "spiral of origin" talk remains confusing to me till the very end. That's probably the one thing I really dislike about this movie, that I really don't get, like, half of what the villain says throughout this entire thing.
1:46:45 - I don't know why, but this scene makes me very sad. I really liked that damn kid. :(

Very, very interesting. I'd say watching the prior movies is necessary in order to fully appreciate/understand this fifth installment, but for those particularly crunched for time, the most necessary ones to watch are the 2nd and 4th movies. (Though the 3rd movie is excellent and worth watching even as a stand-alone.)

This is probably teetering somewhere between a 9 and a 10 for me right now. If all that origin of spiral/taiji/counter force whatever were easier to understand, this would easily get a 10 on MAL. (And I've only given Monster, Princess Tutu, and Touch 10's so far...) It's definitely a well-made movie, in any case. Definitely worth checking out, even if I ultimately don't give it a 10. I think Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo still safely holds the position of my fav. anime movie despite being a little more flawed--but to repeat this for effect: this is a really, really well-made movie.