Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale
Story 6/10: The story follows the typical SAO formula. A new device is introduced and takes the community and everyone who shows a tiny bit of interest in video games by storm. At first, it seems that this new device is, by all means, perfect but the more the story progresses the more problems occur. Overall though the story has a good build up the characters are introduced decently. The only problem I personally have with the story is the climax itself. The climax is really nothing special, for those who have watched SAO before knowing the Plotarmor of the protagonist Kirito. That's also athing here. I´m sure though, if I hadn´t watched a part from SAO before then it would have been at least a decent climax. Overall I can say it is an okay story, it didn´t blow my mind away but it´s not bad either.
Art 9/10: The art is stunning. The scenery looks amazing, especially in the last scenes. The art style is clean and the colors are vibrant. Generally, everything fits, so there's no messed up color scheme or something like that.
Sound 8/10: I like the soundtracks in this movie. They give the enemies an individual feel and they fit in general for the used scenes.
Characters 7/10: This gets only a 7/10 from me because of the introduction of Yuna. I like the idea behind her character and her backstory. She brings a breath of fresh air to the SAO-cast, because she isn´t your typical idol character who is pure and has the most basic background story you can think of. For the rest of cast (I´m only going to name the main cast) we have:
Kirigaya Kazuto is our protagonist in the story. He shows no feelings except when he is around his girlfriend Asuna. He generally doesn´t talk much and is lacking a bit of a personality because his traits are that he is insanely good at video games and that he loves Asuna, there isn´t really much more after that.
Asuna Yuuki is an important character in the film because she sets off the plot here. For someone like me who has seen the first part of SAO I can say that she evolved from your basic Tsundere to a mature and caring character which I must say is pleasing, to say the least.
Side Note: We get a tiny bit of Fanservice for Asuna, so if you like her, well enjoy I guess.
Nochizawa Eiji is our Antagonist. Well, he is the plainest Antagonist you can probably think of. He is overpowered for the most part until the protagonist gets his head together and finds his weakness. His motivation is nothing special and he is edgy as hell. Not that the antagonists in SAO were outstanding in the first place, but Eiji is the most boring yet.
Enjoyment: 7/10: The film has definitely his strong and weak points but I enjoyed it for the most part. The fight scenes are really well choreographed and nicely animated. The film had also one or two moments where it made me smile or laugh. What I didn´t enjoy was the already mentioned boring antagonist and the climax, but overall quite a nice experience.
Overall 7/10: So in conclusion, should you watch SAO: Ordinal Scale? Well, it depends. Do you want some good fights and some stunning looking scenery? If yes, then go ahead, give it a watch!
Do you want a deep story and really fleshed-out characters? Well, meh I don´t think you will find what you search here.