Fate/Stay Night (2010)

Fate/Stay Night: Directed by Ken’ichi Takeshita, Yuji Yamaguchi. With Noriaki Sugiyama, Jun’ichi Suwabe, Kana Ueda, Ayako Kawasumi. The war for the Holy Grail is on. Master/Servant team pairs made up of Magi and the summoned spirits of legendary warriors do battle to the death in their quest for the right to claim the prize. The winning team claims the Grail and it’s power to grant each of them a wish.

“I like Fate Stay/Night, so my opinion is biased. The movie starts out with the first UBW chant. (I like it already 🙂 Plenty of exposition is skipped, (see aside) and the action starts around 4 minutes into the film, as the concept is being explained. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAside: To any unfamiliar with F S/N, itu0026#39;s a visual novel with 3 paths/stories in it. Thereu0026#39;s Fate, UBW, and Heavenu0026#39;s Feel. The Fate story branch was released as a 24 episode anime. That should give you a good idea of how much material they had to fit into a roughly 1 hour and 42 minutes movie. (not including credits) To those familiar with the novel, you may notice some inconsistencies, which I guess were put in to make it shorter.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCharacters- I like a lot of the characters. Shinji is a jerk, as always. Rider doesnu0026#39;t get much time in the spotlight in UBW, unfortunately. Berserker destroys everything, as usual. Ilya doesnu0026#39;t get much time in the movie. Lancer is cool in UBW. Casteru0026#39;s kind of a jerk, as is her nature.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eShiro – A nice guy, too much so. But he manages to not be entirely lame because of it, which is quite a feat. Archer – Sort of a jerk to Shiro, but cool in general. Plus his abilities are just too awesome. I canu0026#39;t really say more without giving away spoilers. Saber – because UBW is about Shiro, Rin, and Archer, she doesnu0026#39;t get much time/exposition. Unfortunate, as sheu0026#39;s one of my favorite characters. Rin – the shortened movie doesnu0026#39;t give Rin as much depth as she has in the novel, or highlight how antagonistic she is at first.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eScenes- When one finds out which Hero Archer is. Archeru0026#39;s last major battle against (too much of a spoiler to say but you should know if youu0026#39;re familiar with FSN) The final battle. Any time Unlimited Blade Works is used. The fight against Berserker at the start. When Lancer throws Gae Bolg.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTL;DR/sort of summaryu003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eItu0026#39;s a movie based on a visual novel, heavily edited to be short. Magical familiars called Servants (who are heroes of legend, like… Achilles, or Lancelot) are summoned to fight for the Holy Grail, which grants a wish to the victor.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI can only review this as to how it compares to the novel. There are several plot details cut out, and exposition. But thereu0026#39;s nothing that canu0026#39;t be understood because of it. However, to know everything thatu0026#39;s happening, it would appear that one would have to either have a basic knowledge of what happens or would have to watch it a few times.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e9-10/10. I am biased though. Plus, I am thinking of it as much in terms of movie to novel as I am thinking of it in terms of entertainment. They did a pretty good job of fitting a lot of material in a little space.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIMDb says 7.2/10 right now. Well, first, there arenu0026#39;t many ratings on it yet. But I could definitely see giving it a 7-8 if I saw it without being familiar with it. Iu0026#39;d be a bit frustrated by not knowing everything, maybe.”