I first watched this movie around when it first released, although I've rewatched it several times since then. I'm making this review directly after my 2nd rewatch on 8/11/2024.
Here's my review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale, probably my favorite anime film that isn't an original story. Just like what I plan to do with all my other reviews, I'll give a rather long explanation of the prologue & first quarter of the movie, then I'll tell you why I like the movie, the good and the bad, as well as some interesting aspects of it. This review will have plenty of spoilers so I don't suggest reading this unless you've already seen the film.
Sword Art Online Ordinal Scale is probably one of the better pieces of work for the SAO franchise in my opinion, and in general, it's a movie I enjoy that I've seen several times. It's an overhated movie and I'll tell you why I think it's a great idea executed rather well.
Klein invites Kirito and Asuna to an Ordinal Scale boss fight that's happening soon. We get our first look at how Ordinal Scale makes the players visualize a Boss Fight atmosphere, although of course, it's a little unrealistic, that is something you'd expect when watching Sword Art Online, thus I don't think it makes the movie any worse at all. Everyone in Ordinal Scale during the Boss Fights gets a weapon, although they never tell us how a user's weapon of choice is selected, whether they can choose or whether it just gives them what they used based on their memories (which wouldn't be far-fetched since we know the Augma scans memories, although it's stated it only scans SAO memories which makes this theory false since we see Sinon get a gun later on). The correct assumption is probably that they choose their weapon, which we see Kirito get a basic sword and Asuna a rapier.
The first boss we see, Kagachi the Samurai Lord, the Floor Boss of Floor 10, someone we haven't seen until this movie, and even though he was only the Floor 10 boss, he is incredibly strong, mix that with the fact the players have to fight with their human physique. The bosses have the same patterns as they did in Aincrad which grants SAO survivors the advantage such as Kirito, Asuna, and Klein. We see Yuna appear to sing and cheer on the players, which gives them an Attack Damage bonus. Kagachi begins demolishing the players and we see a hidden figure in the back scanning and headhunting SAO survivors who are participating in the boss fight. This figure then saves Yuna from the crossfire. We see he's the Number 2 ranked Ordinal Scale player named Eiji. After that, he "switches" with Asuna and gives her the opening to deal the final blow. I'd like to say that the most interesting part of this is that we see Kirito stumble and fail to fight, his body can't keep up with his mind, which is realistic and kind of entertaining to see, he's too used to fighting in FullDive technology. After the battle, Yuna gives Asuna a kiss on the cheek saying she's MVP of the fight, this gives her +10,000 pts (I think), which can be used to buy things in real life.
After that, we see Eiji corner one of Klein's friends, and although we don't directly see what happens, it's safe to say that Eiji beat him up.
The main group holds a short meeting in ALO, the key moment of this meeting is that we learn Asuna begins to connect the dots that Eiji (the man who protected Yuna) was an SAO survivor. We also see Suguha say she has a Kendo Camp, which is ultimately used as a reason to keep her out of the majority of the film. Other than this they just speculate stuff about Ordinal Scale which I guess is somewhat interesting. Moments like these in anime films, especially ones revolving around action are nice to have and I think work as a calm before the storm. After the meeting we see Klein invite Asuna to an Ordinal Scale boss fight through text (never knew that he had her phone number but that's cool I guess). Her first thought was to invite Kirito, but she hesitated and decided not to.
Asuna meets up with Klein and his group, although he mentions that one of his friends isn't responding and went MIA, which leads Asuna to pursue one of the bosses alone as Klein waits for his friend, although Klein is intercepted by another boss which isn't supposed to happen.
Yuna appears at the fight once again playing music and this time providing a Defense buff. With some amazing music and great animation, Asuna and Klein fight their bosses, although Eiji begins fighting Klein and his group, boasting about the difference between AR and VR. 1-by-1 he knocks out Klein's friends giving them REAL injuries, which leads Klein to throw off his gear, and in a rage he begins fighting with his fist, although thanks to Augma's technology, Eiji has no issue beating up Klein, and brutally breaking his arm. The boss that Klein was fighting although on the brink of death, crawls towards Klein and finishes him off, though obviously not killing Klein, making him lose something important. On the flip side, we see Asuna lead a group of players to victory, and once again she deals the killing blow via a nice parry counter effortlessly defeating her boss. The players begin to compliment Asuna and speak about how they've never seen someone as good as her at a game like this before. Yuna appears behind Asuna once again giving her MVP benefits, although Asuna avoids the kiss this time.
After the events of the battle, we see Eiji once again with his menacing talk, as well as an ambulance going by Asuna, which we can infer is Klein and his group being taken to the hospital. Following that, is another show on the news speaking about the Augma, this time more about Ordinal Scale and the effect it's having on other games, leading games like ALO and GGO to decrease in popularity. Yuna also appears on the show advertising her concert in four days.
Kirito on a bridge with Yui who interestingly enough can communicate with people like Kirito and Asuna through the Augma, is waiting for Asuna. He is surprised by a hooded woman standing behind him who appears to be a "ghost", although her appearance resembles Yuna. Another woman comes behind Kirito shocking him again, this time it's Asuna who invited Kirito out to speak about her discovery. She has connected the dots and concluded that Eiji is Nautilus from SAO and was in her Guild, although he wasn't all that capable back then, he had potential and was only bad because he feared death more than most.
That's pretty much it for the first quarter of the movie.
I'll start with why I personally like this. Although just like the majority of SAO, it is flawed, it does completely fill out the checks for the entertainment factor of a film. For those who love action, this movie is great, the climax of the movie was amazing, and we got to see the special abilities of all the important characters at the climax boss battle of the movie such as Mother's Rosario from Asuna, Starburst Stream from Kirito, and more. This was also Asuna's first time using Mother's Rosario that we see, which is amazing for those who liked Yuuki and her arc. For long-time SAO fans like myself, moments like that made me feel nostalgic and excited.
Now as for why I actually believe the movie is good and not as bad as many say, the main premise of this movie is the concept of memories and how they affect others, this isn't just what this movie is about but it's one of the key points of the SAO franchise in general. The movie does a good job of showing how important memories are and how they carry a character's emotions and actions, we see how the loss of key memories can leave a character feeling empty, and rather desperate to relive these memories and/or get them back. The film uses the massive player base of SAO that we didn't see a lot of and builds upon a side story that we did not know of, that being Eiji and Yuna and although brief and much more detail of it in the light novel, it's a somewhat interesting story and lays out the foundation of the movie. I believe that building on top of Aincrad like that is very interesting and it's also the reason why I loved Progressive, hearing more about those trauma stories is one of the best parts of this franchise. As for Yuna's father, I find his character a little dumb although not too far-fetched. He's pretty much gone crazy and has lost all sense of honor, he's gotten to the point where he'll do anything and try anything to try and "revive" his daughter. He's gotten so obsessed that he's come to the crazy conclusion of stealing the memories of SAO survivors to try and revive his daughter which doesn't make a lot of sense. It states in the movie that Augma scans memories so why does it have to steal it and why can't it just copy memories? That aspect of his plan is what I really don't understand, but I think him using random people's memories to try and revive his daughter is really his last resort, many people who hate the movie say that it's pointless although they don't realize when you've tried every logical option to failure you start trying pointless things in an attempt for them to work (Almost like constantly trying to start up a car even though you've ran out of gas).
Here are some of the negative things I heard about this movie. Almost every review I see about this movie doesn't point that out and judges the movie for its flaws, and although it's flawed, most people don't point out the blatant flaws and go over why they dislike the SAO franchise, ultimately they hate it not because of the bad parts of the movie but because of what they don't like to see in an anime in general which leads their rating of the film to be influenced by their bias. Another review on this movie states that part of the reason the movie sucks is that it's more of Kirito and Asuna's romance and cool fighting, although I'd say this movie has just as much Slice of Life and Storytelling as it does fighting, he dislikes characters like Yui as well as lesser characters like Silica and Liz, although I think characters who were previously introduced in the franchise and didn't make the movie any worse have no reason to influence your rating of the film, especially considering they played such little part, although Silica is the reason Asuna got her memories taken in the first place, it was a reasonable decision of Asuna's developed character. The final statement of his review is that he doesn't like the movie because it's pretty much SAO, which sums up his bias right there.
Anyways, the movie is far from perfect, but every aspect it attacks, such as emotions, memories, slice of life, as well as the main things of SAO like the Kirito and Asuna romance, and fights, it does amazingly. I could make another paragraph about the music in the movie alone but I see no reason too, simply but the animation and soundtracks in this film are top-notch. I'd say the concept of Yuna's revival is the worst part about this movie, but besides that I don't think there are too many flaws.
I rated this movie 8.5/10 on my list, but I think a more serious rating would be an 8/10. Of course, 8.5/10 is acceptable as well.
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