Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale
I swear to God, this fandom knows no peace of mind. With the release of the first season, the entire industry has known a massive uphold for how successful and widely spread the franchise has gotten, but then, people who just hate what's mainstream and popular, but then, season two was released, and even within the fans of the first one, the surge was still strong and present, but this time it was due to disappointment if anything, and just after everybody thought it wouldn't get any worse, GGO was released, diving the fandom once more. There was no hope left for this franchise from anoutside perspective, but then, something came up, declaring the return of SAO with promising hights, sough by many like the second coming of Jesus (AS), the movie adaptation of the Ordinal Scale arc.
- Story (7.6/10):
With the release of the NerveGear, and the follow-up Amusphere, full-dive accessibility was as widely spread as smartphones are, these things were everywhere, every time, until a new technology slipped though, stealing all the spotlights, the Augma, move all the fuss and buzz from Virtual Reality to Augmented Reality, it seems, as these gadgets get smaller, the world and applications get much bigger. The inclusion of such a device was suddenly dropped it felt like it comes out from nothing, a typical decision to make after your boss pats your back violently, am I right Kawahara? (for the curious, Mr. Reki Kawahara is SAO's writer).
The move from VR to AR was very present and hard felt in the movie, looking at how Kirito and folks rely on system assists in the virtual world, physical genuinely was out of the question, but here, you can see the struggle. Kirito is by no mean the fit sports dude, so seeing him struggle was a nice touch.
The themes of the plot connected a lot with the Aincrad arc, it brought back the fun, the sad, and the sought past of what happened during the 2 years ordeal that was SAO, it also picked up a lot of talks and provoked many philosophical questions, what really makes a person, is it the memories you have with them? Is it their consciousness? Is it the impact they had on the world? Deep stuff that makes you think.
- Art (8.2/10):
Well, I guess, it's a movie, and a recent one at that, so we're home, or at least, your eyes are. Beautiful choreography like nothing we've seen before in SAO, the magic of a higher budget was definitely felt strongly.
CGI was used heavily, but for the sake of the settings, that would be batted off. The characters felt the same more or less, but I still couldn't shake the difference in Kirito and Asuna, both appear to look a bit more mature, probably due to the slight changes of the art style, or perhaps, it's the weird nose shine thingy.
- Sound (7.7/10):
I would stand on the average side when it's the audio department, I felt like the simple fact of bringing on some of the old openings would have upped this one a notch, but no. The featured songs, seeing how all of one of the key characters does is sing were good for their moment, and that's it.
The voice acting brought nothing new to the table, just some generic yelling and screams all over the place, enough to keep conversations going.
- Character (7.6/10):
To be honest, it's the old “easy come easy go” fiasco all over again. A better way to put it, it's was almost a carbon copy of the Mother's Rosario arc, having an arc revolve around a certain one-off character to motivate the cast to act and react. If anything, Asuna and Kirito's moments were the highlights here, seeing how there was a big theme around memories and what makes one him or herself.
Eiji as an antagonist was a bit weak and uninteresting, although, he did provide Kirito a hard opponent to stand against, the same goes for the man behind Augma felt like a bootleg helpless knockoff of Akihiko Kayaba, he started off the controversy, but did little as nothing to spice it out.
- Enjoyment (8.3/10):
The enclosed story, the tides to Aincrad were strong and what made the most of this movie, and the action sequences were definitely a highlight.
More fan service from the movie, both in a cultured way with a certain bath scene and in the battle sequences. Even for me, I've just seen SAO for the first time in under 10 days ago, yet, the movie was hitting on the right wave for me to make me feel nostalgic as though years have passed or something.
- Overall (7.88/10):
Some people would call this a comeback, just the right comeback for the franchise if you will. I would easily recommend this to anyone wishful enough for the return of SAO, just like it says at the last second of the movie while flashing on the screen; “SAO will return”.
Definitely the tribute the franchise deserves, pack it up, get something to eat, get comfy, it's going to be a lengthy movie, and oh, heads up, there is a nude scene in there, so be cautious while diving in.