Summer Wars is a highly acclaimed movie that pleased audiences in Japan, the US, and pretty much everywhere. It is cheesy and doesn't have the strongest plot, but it is a terrific feel good movie and will make you smile.
Plot and characters: 6/10
Spoilers! If you haven't seen the film yet. I summarize the rather short plot, so if you plan on watching and you don't want it spoiled than skip the plot summary!
Kenji is a socially awkward math wizard that is invited by a girl in his class named Natsuki to pretend to be her boyfriend, so she doesn't have to go to her family reunion single. This comedy plot has been done quite a few times before, but this movie has a twist. The world of this movie has their own version of the internet where people literally enter it virtual reality style, much like the internet on Futurama. Almost everything is done online and if something were to happen to the web, the results would be at least as bad if not worse than what would happen in our own world. Unfortunately, Natsuki's crazy uncle has created a rogue AI that wishes to wreak havoc on the web and eventually destroy it. However, the AI for some reason has the human trait of arrogance and will accept any challenge from a mere human. If the AI (hilariously named Love Machine) is defeated in a game than it will somehow lose the accounts it controls and be destroyed for reasons that make absolutely no sense. At first Natsuki's cousin who is secretly the greatest Street Fighter player in the world challenges the nefarious AI to a duel. Imagine if in Ingmar Bergman's 7th Seal, Max von Sydow's character challenged Death to Street Fighter 2 rather than chess. This is sort of like that, which makes it rather hilarious. After the cousin Kazuma is defeated, it is Natsuki's turn to challenge the machine to a Japanese card game called Koi Koi. The entire world teams up to help her and with glorious music playing in the background mankind defeats the evil AI. Before it dies, the furious AI redirects a satellite to crash into the town and kill everyone, but this of course doesn't stop the local baseball game that the movie keeps panning over to. Baseball is far more important than life or death. Since this is a comedy, everything ends happily and Natsuki and Kenji fall in love while realizing the strength of a loving family.
According to Summer Wars, the match between Kasparov and Deep Blue should have ended with Humanity performing the Shuffle Alliance Attack from G-Gundam
Art and music: 8/10
The art and music here is top notch and you will nearly cry tears of joy when mankind comes together to take on the AI. You are of course aware of how cheesy and ridiculous this movie is, but you can't take away from its emotional satisfaction and impact.
Overall: 7/10
Is this a perfect movie or the greatest movie the anime genre has ever known? No. However, it is a very fun, emotionally satisfying, and beautifully animated movie that you won't regret watching unless of course you are a Scrooge caliber curmudgeon.
