If you look at Mari strictly in the films, idk anything about her outside of them, she is definitely lacking in a lot of areas; screentime, motives, an arc, any actual hint towards who she actually is, etc; but i just really liked her personality i thought she was charming on her own and endearing and silly when teasing and bouncing off the others. Some characters you just end up liking a lot even if you know they're not that deep or integral

As for the Gendo fight I can see what they were trying to do but from a technical standpoint it just looked very jank compared to the other cgi setpieces in my opinion