Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale Review

It’s the return of the gamers—and dangerous, killer tech—in Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale, which will definitely please fans of the SAO anime series. The movie, which premiered in Japan last month and had its U.S. premiere last week, takes place after the events of the series and finds Kirito and Asuna once again having to kick ass and take names, this time in the real world as well as the virtual. When the movie opens, virtual reality (VR), and in particular, “deep-diving” into virtual reality worlds like Aincrad, is on the decline. Instead, the hottest new trend is augmented reality (AR): You put on a sleek, little headset as you go about your everyday life, and it incorporates interactive elements of virtual reality into real-life. So, basically, it’s an upgraded version of Pokémon Go. For some reason, because apparently, no one in SAO has learned their lesson about this creepy kind of magical tech, everyone, including our heroes at the SAO survivor school, get their hands on the newest AR device, Augma. It’s OK, though, guys, because Augma has corporate partners that give discount and sales incentives to AR users who win games and increase their rankings in the system. So that free soda coupon definitely makes this all a great idea—and by that I mean all of this is a horrible idea. Anyway, in typical SAO fashion, our heroes soon discover that something is off with Augma. Powerful bosses from the world of the Sword Art Online game begin showing up in Ordinal Sc…