Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

I told myself that SAO is bad only because Kawahara wrote the LN series during a time when he didn't care about quality that much. Now I can say with 100% certainty that he still doesn't. There will be spoilers in this. I'm just ranting at this point too. Don't get me wrong, the movie itself is pretty enjoyable. The problem is that the more you think about the technicalities of the plot, the less sense it makes. This is pretty much how I felt about SAO after I rewatched it. The first time I thought it was pretty decent but after rewatches I realized itwas hot garbage. Only now that I look for these inconsistencies do I know how bad Kawahara's writing is on the first viewing.

My issues with the movie are as follows:

1) The plot makes no sense. Yuna is supposed to be an AI that is revived to a near biological sentience after taking the memories of SAO survivors. HOWEVER, Kirito is greeted by a girl who looks like Yuna that gives him hints on how to save Asuna. During the entire movie, it seemed like Yuna didn't need these memories at all. So, what's the point then?

2) Kirito manages to beat Eiji. During the beginning of the movie, it's clear that Kirito's lack of physical prowess holds him back from being a good player in Ordinal Scale. This is a good thing, because it allows us to see Kirito not as a boring and bland OP protagonist, but as someone who knows what it's like to have power taken away from them. Well, surprise surprise, but this premise is dropped half way through the movie. Kirito randomly becomes a badass again, and defeats AN AUGMENTED Eiji. Bionics that give people super strength and agility. Do you know how little sense this makes? Thanks Kawahara.

3) The sense of danger in the final act was blown out of proportion. After Yuna's concert, a bunch of monsters show up and people's first instinct is to fight them, and not take their devices off? Seriously? Way to artificially bloat danger for no reason.

4) Augmented Reality seems pretty pointless when it comes to VR-like video games. The movie tries to make Ordinal Scale seem like SAO. Why? What is the purpose of this? AR's best use is like how it is used in Accel World, helping with day to day tasks.

5) The characters outside of the main group are as one dimensional as they come. Kawahara doesn't know how to write villains. Kayaba and Sugo were both evil for the sake of it in the series. Eiji and Yuna's dad were evil to resurrect Yuna in the movie. It's stuff we've seen before. Yuna herself is pretty much a pop idol. Not much nuance there either.

I do have to give the movie credit in two areas. The first being that it didn't bore me. I was entertained. The action was pretty good throughout and the art/animation was also good. The second area would be the relationship between Kirito and Asuna. I'm glad they've gone full romance again after letting that go for multiple arcs. Seriously. The last time we saw them kiss was in the Aincrad arc. The harem stuff was awful. At least this time I can say thanks Kawahara unironically.