I really liked the movie. And I have no problems that things are not exactly like in manga. They shouldn't be. it's a movie. They work different from continuous series. Anyone whining about small unimportant details can be dismissed as a blind fanboy.
Oh, and original is one of my favorite anime series of all time, so it's not like I don't understand it. I just have common sense.
But the movie by no means flawless.
Cinematography is great, sets are real and used to their fullest. There's little to no CGI, everything is rather gritty, bloody when needed. Stuff is dirty and slimy when it needs to, the movie isn't trying to be clean and pretty about what it's doing. There are freaking bugs and worms crawling over the corpses that were lying in the dirt entire night.
Stunts are practical, the battles are dynamic. They are also rather fresh, helped by the fact that Kenshin barely unsheathed his sword before finale. Added variety.
Acting was very enjoyable except for the lead. Because of how darker and more compressed the story is, we never really got any of the lighthearted scenes where Kenshin is silly and participate in comic relief. Sure it'd be out of place in this movie, but it does hurt the character. There's no contrast between everyday Kenshin and Moody and introverted Kenshin when past catches up to him. He is constantly moody and introverted , which leads to the face full of "dull disinterest" for the majority of the movie. Considering that everybody else around him acts their asses off, him being this boring and unengaged feels weird. Even Saito Hajime, who was the definition of stoic and "dull disinterest" in the series, here has passion, despite how unneeded he is for this movie, which I totally agree with.
Most of the changes are perfectly fine. Some are shaky, like Fake Battousai pretending to be from Kamiya Kashin went nowhere. I understand why they needed to keep the "somebody is tainting the reputation of her doujo" part, that was pretty much essential and I understand it. But the character they give the role too had no motivation to do that and it went nowhere. But it's still better than bringing that stupid comic relief villain from the first episode.
Most of the changes make sense. You don't need Onivabanshu in this movie. They were pretty much a set up for next story arc, they could and were successfully replaced with random goons. You have to compress the story. You have less time to establish things.
The problems actually not from what they did omit, but from what they didn't. Apart from Saito having f**k all to do in this movie, there's Zanbato. Gekijouban manga did a very smart decision of taking it out entirely. You can establish that Sanosuke's super strength other way. He is a brawler. No need to even try to recreate that giant sword by creating a very fake and flimsy rubber sword. It looked pathetic.
The story might get a bit confusing to people that didn't see the original. Not because the movie has troubles explaining itself, but simply because there's so much. Movie is over two hours and it feels like it, having to deal with two story arcs compressed into one.
The whole "Shin no ippo" feels silly. The world meant to be more realistic than the original, so having magical hypnotic powers is a bit too much. I understand why it's there. I understand why it had to be hastily established on the one random guy in police station. It's so that there can be a time limit on the battle. So that Kenshin has to be put in the situation of choice, the conflict brought to him by a person who is essentially a legacy and embodiment of his past. This is actually where him pretending to be a hitokiri makes sense, since that's essentially what he is. He is what Kenshin abandoned that day and he is the past that cought up. But you could think of something else other than "magical hypnotic eye" to create this conflict.
Some of the stunts were also way over the top. When he was running horizontally, it really took me out of the moment, for example. And Saito's Gatotsu was laughable.
Some editing was weird, especially when fake Battousai first encountered Kaoru. Those weird sudden speed ups were out of place and inconsistent with the rest of the editing in the movie. They were just weird choices that director probably shouldn't have made.
Other problems I had with subtitles. First of all, "Why is he leaving these zankanjou" is not english. It's "weeaboo". Sure, fine don't translate the names of styles and attacks, but you should translate something like that.
And more importantly, hitokiri. I had this problem way before. Every single translation leaved this word untraslated. Why? It's "murderer". Heck, go metal and translate it a bit more directly as "Human slayer". Go promt and translate it as "human cutter". But no, it's left as hitokiri even when it's not a part of "Hitokiri Battousai" name.
Overall, I really liked the movie. It's entertaining, it actually does a rather good job of keeping it close to the source material. Almost all the changes made sense for the movie and it's never a betrayal.
It's also surprising how dark this story can be, something not noticeable in the original.
I think my 3 biggest complaints for this movie (besides the story) would be: 1. When Kenshin is fighting...he sure got hurt a lot. Well I mean, to me when he was fighting Hajime and got the reverse blade on his shoulder I was like.....I don't think Kenshin (in the manga) would ever get himself in that position to have his blade hurt himself (also I don't recall if he got that red shirt long before Kaoru gave it to him in this movie). 2. When Megumi was running away from Jin-e in the police station...you know, falling nearly 3 times, crawling on the floor, I guess that's what turned me off from that character. I don't think her character would allow herself to do that 3. The entire village caring for Kaoru's dojo. Like...one of the random character's said that they'll always have her back, and they even went to her when the children got sick hoping for some help....that, never happened in the manga. At all. That was...just weird.
As for Oniwabanshu, I mentioned that they really had no point in being here. Out of place Saito is enough. We don't need more out of place characters. Just because everyone masturbates over Aoshi, doesn't mean he was important for this part of the story.
as for other complaints:
1. Dramatic tension and point of the character. He is pacifistic to the detriment of himself. Saito was proving to him, that those were just pretty words that will come back to bite him. that what it represented. His sword hurting himself was a visual metaphor of that conflict of moralities. The sword that cuts your enemy against a sword that essentially hurts yourself. Trigun did similar thing, where Vash's pacifism caused him to look like a torture victim.
2. Actually she was being bumped into by a bunch of cops running full speed with sticks in their hands. it also slowed her down, making the killer feel closer, once again for dramatic tension.
3. This scene is weird, but I understand the point of it. It was to establish Megumi as a medic and someone who really much cares about human life and have passion to do the right thing. It also established that her hiding away is going to hurt others, which prompted her to come back and take responsibility, by trying to kill the bastard.
They went weird about it, that I agree with, but the point of the scene was not about Kaoru, village caring about Kaoru and her doujo, or any of that. It was "Megumi's scene"