Now that you know how I feel about the movie let me tell you little bit more about it and my experience watching it. I watched the movie at the 12th animeversary of MoNAC back in late January and I'm now just getting around to blogging about it. Lame, I know. Since I didn't know much about the series I was surprised to see the level of violence that I saw in the movie because I was really not expecting to see a loli girl getting her heart ripped out of her chest. That was a bit of a shocker but not nearly as much as the fact that I noticed that a parent was letting their kids watch the movie as well while they were off somewhere else playing cards. WOW!
But that's neither here nor there. Since I'm not familier with the series I did have to do a little bit of reading up on the series to help me work things out in my mind. The basic plot is that there are a handfull of powerfull magic users who are all entered into a battle to be the one who claims the Holy Grail (yes that Holy Grail) in order to have their wish granted. Now those magic uses actually use stand in combatents to do the actaul fighting (to the death). In the movie this fighting is done really quick and dirty. They throw a lot at you in 2 hours, in fact apparently the movie is actually an alternate route compared to the original anime story. So I'm guessing the movie was way different than the series if that is the case.
I actually thought that the movie was really well put together in a way that gave you a lot of action, explained what was going on and why and did a good job of telling a compelling story from point A to point B. It pulled you into the characters' challenges and made you want to root for them to win. I never felt like I was wondering when it was going to be over. I really did enjoy the movie and would more than likely rent it or even buy it if it was released in the states. I know the series was and I thought about renting it on Netflix but like most anime titles there it's in "VERY LONG WAIT" mode.
I'd say if you haven't jumped on the Fate/Stay night band wagon like me checking ot the movie is a good thing and a great way to introduce yourself to the franchise. If you liked the anime series, the manga or anything else relating to the Franchise it is probably a must watch but you never know how these alternate story lines will work out with the fans who liked the original. But I'm going to take a guess and say this probably went over really well with them.
Check out some trailers for the movie.
