体は剣で着ている... - "I am the bone of my sword..."

I am the bone of my sword.

Steel is my body and fire is my blood.

I have created over a thousand blades.

Unknown to Death.

Nor known to Life.

Have withstood pain to create many weapons.

Yet, those hands will never hold anything.

So as I pray, unlimited blade works.

I come to you all today with a movie review! :D

So remember the post I made a looooong time ago about the Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works movie? Well, it's finally out on BluRay and I finally got a chance to watch it. Needless to say, I was quite excited at first. My favorite path from the visual novel was going to be animated. I had my reservations about the level of story that would be involved in the movie. After all, they're converting a 20+ hour path to a 2 hour movie. My friends and I just told ourselves that we're only watching the movie for the action and nothing else. Going into the movie with that sole expectation - we couldn't possibly be disappointed.

Well let me begin by saying that this review may be a bit biased. As I said before, Unlimited Blade Works is my favorite path from the Fate/Stay Night visual novel. Everything about it felt pretty epic. I remember talking about the UBW path (and pretty much the entire F/SN visual novel in general) day after day with my very good buddy Raymond Wu. It was just that good.

Then I watched the movie. After sitting through the 1 hour 45 minute movie, I was left with mixed feelings.

(4:41:24 PM) Raymond Wu I am za bone of my sawrd.

(4:42:40 PM) ME! >_>

(4:42:53 PM) ME! im mixed on the movie.

(4:42:54 PM) ME! lol

(4:43:08 PM) Raymond Wu once again I dont think we walked into it thinking it was going to be a masterpiece

Let me start with what was good about the movie:

• The animation. Oh my god the animation. It's freakin' great. When comparing the anime (which followed the Fate path with some of the other two paths mixed in) to the movie, the movie quality blows the anime quality out of the water. I haven't watched the Reproduction run, though, so I can't compare the movie to that. But yeah - the animation is top notch.
• The fight scenes. The main reason I looked forward to the movie. The animators really brought the fight scenes to life. When I saw the Saber vs. Berserker fight in the cemetery, I was like "F*CK YEAHHHHH THIS IS AWESOME." (I blacked out the text just in case whoever reading this hasn't played the visual novel or watched the movie yet. Minor SPOILARZ)
• The music score. Kenko Kawai did a fantastic job on composing an epic score that followed the mood of the scenes perfectly. (In fact, I'm listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTy77FMwO6o as I'm typing this!)

So that's all good then, right? My expectations were met? I guess you could say that. Yet, I can't shake this feeling that's nagging at me. There's this feeling where I wish the producers just included a bit more of the story.

(7:52:48 PM) Danny Lin lol yeah i guess these are stuff that only people who played the game would pick at lol

(7:53:01 PM) ME! yeah

(7:53:02 PM) ME! i mean

(7:53:05 PM) ME! i can't complain

(7:53:09 PM) ME! the fight scenes were gdlk

(7:53:16 PM) ME! but i wish they focused on some story

(7:53:35 PM) ME! spend the extra money and make like 20-30 more minutes of animation

(7:53:46 PM) Danny Lin lol yeah

Honestly, if I had not played the visual novel, I would NOT know what was going on. The events all just seem so rushed. It's like one second they're fighting in a cemetery, then in a church, then in a temple. Characters pop out of nowhere without a real introduction. Names are called out and the viewers probably have no idea who that person is, unless they've either watched the anime or played the visual novel. Honestly, I would feel like the plot is a mess.

In addition, I wish some scenes would've been expanded upon. There was one particular scene that I had really hoped would be kept intact as much as possible. But, as with all the other story scenes, it was cut down. It seemed like the producers really only cared about the action. (Basically? I WANTED SOME MORE STORY.)

Final verdict? The movie is solid at best. Definitely not Evangelion 2.22 or Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoutshitsu quality. Watch it if you're a fan of the anime and/or visual novel. The review probably made me sound more negative than I really feel about the movie. If you haven't watched or played either, then watch it if all you need for an anime movie to be good is action. Otherwise, you might want to reconsider.

Score: 7/10