Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

Ordinal Scale is a Sword art Online movie that takes place after the second season of the anime and 4 years after the start of SAO. It requires watching the first two seasons to understand everything that happens. The story is about a new technology that brings virtual worlds into the real world, meaning people can see virtual objects in real life. Overall the story isn't amazing. The plot isn't solid, there's holes and many conveniences that make the story play out. This doesn't mean however that it isn't interesting or fun to watch. You aren't told about everything that's happening which creates an airof mystery and genuinely keeps you interested in what's happening on the screen. Over time you learn with the characters what's happening working towards a solid ending for the movie. The romance/harem aspect isn't amazing but it plays a relatively minor role and is easy to ignore.

The characters are mostly the same as in the previous two seasons. It's mostly Kirito + friends and they are all the same as they were before. There's some new characters, mainly antagonists who are reasonably well designed. They aren't evil for the sake of being evil but have their own motivations.

The animation, as one would expect from a movie, is great and fun to watch. The fights looks especially great and I was quite impressed. The sound is good and again great in the fights, it was satisfying to listen to. The voice acting is good.

Overall this movie is definitely worth watching if you liked the first two seasons of SAO. They move past the previous fulldive technology but it is still clearly SAO. The plot isn't perfect but it's a fun movie to watch with great animation and sound design.