The movie's greatest weakness is that it tries to condense a whole 50+ episode arc (not sure if it's that long, don't quote me on that, but it is pretty freaking long) into a 90 minute film, and that just makes the whole thing suffer from an unstable progression, a rushed plot, and untouched and unreferenced character backgrounds that SHOULD have been part of the movie for character development. There's a reason the story and the characters are this movie's low points. In all honesty, the movie needed at least another 45 min. to an hour to clear the air of every bit of exposition needed.
Legend of Sanctuary tries to allure to the original Sanctuary Saga while at the same time trying to be it's own thing. But the way it presents itself is sort of confusing and contradicting. I read that this movie was meant to be a retelling of the Sanctuary Saga with a not-so-faithful interpretation of the events that transpired in the original anime's arc, and that all the aesthetic changes were all made to appeal to new and old audiences alike, but when characters are dropped in the middle of the stage without so much as an explanation for their pasts, which comes in conflict later off, newcomers are bound to feel like they're missing something and only old school fans will really get the whole picture. Heck, some people left cinema's not even understanding what the Cosmo was, and that's established in the first 5 minutes.
In contrast, however, they made the characters really engrossing and entertaining (with both strenghts and weaknesses of character being explored in the movie), some more than others. The new Athena is a case of redeemability for me, since she's actually likable and relatable - at least, she's much more relatable than Saori Kido from the Saint Seiya anime, where she was portrayed as this holier-than-thou Mary Sue in distress, and who was impossible to understand if she was Athena in the body of Saori Kido, Saori with the grace, powers and divinity of the goddess Athena, or a mix of both. Though the new Athena is great, some of the relations between fellow Gold Saints, and the main villain, were not added due to the movie's lenght. Milo for example, who was one of the best re-imagined characters, suffered very little screen time, just enough for a quick Bronze Saint trashing and nothing more. And Aphrodite? He's introduced just to say: "Hey, remember the last Gold Saint? You know, the androgenious looking one with the whole Pisces and Rose motive going on? Yeah, he's here too", and he **** the very next scene.
On the art front everything was breathtaking and spectacular. The movie's style reminds me of a mix of Square-Enix's CGI cutscenes with and the expressiveness of Pixar, with large injections of heavy shounen. Overall, the visual and the fights might just be the movie's best feature. The changed aesthetics and visuals were some of the very best and most interesting redesigns I've ever liked in any characters, and fictional world and lore. They changed visuals for a lot of characters, Milo even changing gender.
Overall, this movie is still enjoyable and deserves to be watched by fans and non-fans alike. Although the time restrictions caused the passing to be rushed as heck, the humor, the visuals, the music and even most of the cast fill in what the movie lacks nicely. Purist will see it as an abomination, as the Super Mario Bros live-action movie of Saint Seiya-dom, but regular fans will delight in what it has to offer. The transition of a very hefty anime arc into a 90 min. animated film, may have costed us a perfect adaptation, but what we got is pretty dang enjoyable.
