Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

Do you recall how you felt when the Sword Art Online series first begin to air? That fascination you had towards the entire concept of being trapped within a virtual reality; where death in the virtual world meant death in reality as well? Where you got to experience that unique sense of adventure, romance, and fantasy? If you do; then be well prepared to have this movie, Sword Art Online: OS, reintroduce that long-lost feeling to you. As a fair prerequisite to this review I'll note that I watched this movie last night in the theater during the special "One Night Only!" showing promotion that seemsto be the standard for most anime movies in the U.S. So, my opinions and feelings about the movie as a whole are still quite fresh.

I came to write this review with two intentions: to give my honest thoughts on the movie and to detail my feelings about such; but also to make sure the all too prevalent incentive to knock down the S.A.O series doesn't misconstrue the reviews and/or depictions of this movie.

To begin this review it'd be best for me to give my honest opinion: I thought this movie was really "cool," for lack of a better term. It's a movie which invokes the giddy young-child-esque feeling inside of you; the same feeling we all had with the start of the original Sword Art Online series.

In the theater I had two young children behind me who couldn't help themselves; they talked constantly and were clearly excited. In most situations this would be an offensive gesture; but to better clarify the feeling this movie evoked I couldn't help but relate to their youth-bound wonder and almost wanted to join in on the conversation.

The Sword Art Online Movie: OS almost seems to be a culmination of everything people have asked for from the S.A.O series. It's a production which I would imagine would occur if the studio looked at a S.A.O forum; read everything the audience said they wanted to see from the series, and then created a movie with those thoughts in mind.

The art and sound for the movie were very, very well done. The animation was clearly top-notch and the sound was something that not only fit the fight scenes very well (given their general context of a fantasy setting), but also sounded very impressive in the surround-sound theater. The only complaint I had with the art and sound were that the background characters (such as people walking in the background) were done through CGI, or an animation style that didn't seem to fit the animation style of the lead characters, but this wasn't enough to knock down my overall opinion of the art.

The story was an interesting one; and made for a story which felt worth following. It wasn't, in my opinion, the high point of the movie; but it also didn't hold it back. In my opinion the overall aesthetic of the movie, the absolutely amazing fight scenes, and the presence of everything a S.A.O fan could ask for was the reason to see the movie; more so than the presented story-line.

The characters I don't feel I need to detail, as we likely already know them well and it wouldn't serve me much to review them. However with that in mind this movie almost requires that you've prior seen the Sword Art Online series; otherwise a lot of it will not make sense. Before watching this movie I strongly recommend you watch through the first three season of S.A.O, so that any references and/or other points in the movie won't be overlooked due to lack of prior knowledge.

This movie is simply, in my best means of describing it: fun and exciting. If you watched S.A.O and ever thought "I wonder ---" then that wonder may be well fulfilled in this movie. There's a sense of realism in the movie that I've not seen in many animes; there's a clear respect for the wants of the fans, and whilst there were plot holes and other elements which could be negatively focused on; I don't think they did much to make the movie any less enjoyable. The same way you can take almost any series and focus on the negatives to make it a "bad" series, you can do to S.A.O - the problem being people have picked out S.A.O as one of the series that is common place to only look at in a negative light. This is why I wanted to write this review; I don't want this movie to be criticized to the bone like all other seasons of S.A.O have; I wanted to stand up and let anime fans know : If you like S.A.O, then this movie is, without a doubt in my mind, something you should see.

Enjoy your time at the movies! (Or on your couch at home watching the Blu-ray / DVD)