Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

This movie is pretty much exactly what I wanted from an SAO movie. In terms of plot line, the focus on the film is on Kirito and Asuna's relationship, as well as how it is linked to their time in Aincrad. It does a pretty good job with this, and though it doesn't have a lot of depth to it, it feels consistent with the characters and does hit some good emotional beats, especially with the ending. The rest of the previous cast is also present, and almost everyone gets a bit of time to shine, but largely aren't that important. What is more importantis the new characters introduced Eiji and Yuna, who aren't that memorable, but who are competent at being the other driving force behind the plot opposite to Kirito and Asuna. This plot is relatively simple and resolved adequately in a reasonably satisfying manner over the course of the movie. Hence, while it did get a bit slow at points, overall I'd have to say the plot did a pretty good job at driving the film forward at a good pace.

Now that's all well and good, but rather than plot, I would have to say what actually makes the film amazing is that it seems to focus on aspects other than the plot. In terms of action, the film is fantastic, having incredibly well animated fight scenes. The action combat is so simple that it doesn't even really warrant any explanation into it's mechanics, but it's still ends up being really cool. Part of this is that it flips the script completely on Kirito from the switch from VR to AR, and hence gives him a major hurdle to overcome, that he still manages to pull it off. The highlight of the movie is the final major battle. It's well animated and the action is great, but beyond that, regarding how it plays out, its just really amazing. Looking back, it seems that they had to force it to make it happen, but it was worth it because it hits a very large number of notes, arguably every single one, in regards to appealing to SAO fans. It's just a steady steam of awesome things happening in quick succession that legitimately made me smile.

The art was really good along side the animation. Yuna's design was good, though the designs for most everyone else felt somewhat weak but I suppose that was for the sake of being consistent with the atmosphere of the real world and set up the change at the end. The soundtrack was great, with Yuna's tracks fitting very well, and with the LiSA ending closing things off perfectly.

tl;dr: A movie that excels in the areas SAO does well, and does a good job in the areas that it doesn't, in part by focusing less on them.