Story:
We open where Presage Flower left off. Saber has been absorbed by a strange red and black creature. Shirou is an entire toolbox. Zouken and Assassin are causing major problems. In Lost Butterfly, Shirou and Rin rescue Sakura from her brother, discover some uncomfortable truths about her past, go to Illya's rescue when the strange being comes after her and Berserker and the identity of the creature gets revealed.
There are a couple big story problems with the film. The first is that it contains some serious topics like physical, emotional and sexual abuse and it doesn't really bother to engage with or handle them in a mature, intelligent fashion. Rather, they seem to be here for shock value and as an easy motivation for a particular character. Maybe that changes in the last film and there's actually some proper exploration and handling of it, but I suspect that won't be the case. Another issue is that characters give up on their plans really easily for plot contrivance's sake. There are points where Rin and Shirou are both determined to take action and then give up on those plans very easily. The romance is also very banal.
Now, to the positives. I do think the film does an excellent job with building intrigue. The reveal of the creature's nature is very well executed and there is some strong foreshadowing to complement it. So, it is an interesting enough film when it's not focusing on the relationship betwixt Shirou and Sakura.
Characters:
Here's where the film really face plants into a pile of rusty razor blades. The two major characters it spends the most time with are Shirou & Sakura. Shirou is an absolute trash tier protagonist. Annoying, dumb as shit, wears thick plot armour so nothing bad can stick. And Sakura is boring. Here's the thing, giving a character a very canned tragic back story doesn't imbue them with a personality or interesting traits. No matter how much ufotable thinks it does. A well-defined back story can be good for enhancing a character and explaining certain facets of their personality but it won't make a character without depth interesting or complex by itself.
Art:
My biggest issue with the artwork is that the big action sequences have a lot of bright, bombastic flashing lights. I understand what they're going for. It's the Michael Bay method of going all out with bright, flashing effects. The problem with this method is that half the action sequence is just bright, flashing lights. It's not as interesting or as satisfying to look at as, say, an action sequence with a lot of weapon play, punches, kicks and very visceral impacts where you actually see the effects of every blow. A string of massive explosions that take up most or all of the screen just starts getting repetitive very quickly. That aside, the art is nicely detailed.
Sound:
Strong actors, nice music. It's no different from the first film in that regard.
Ho-yay:
There's none to be found.
Areas of Improvement:
1. Handle your mature content maturely. This is something I've talked about pretty extensively, but it continues to be a relevant point. Content like sexual abuse isn't mature by default just because it's very serious and you wouldn't find it in something for young audiences. You have to actually handle it well and engage with it in a meaningful way for it to be mature. And this film, like so many other supposedly mature works, doesn't bother to do that. It handles it like a fourteen year old trying to be edgy or Frank Miller by throwing it in there with seemingly no reason beyond easy shock value and a misconception that tragic back stories equate to depth.
2. Your lead characters need to be interesting. You can get by with some side characters being a bit of nothing. But it's a problem when one of your leads has all the personality of a dried up wad of gum and the other is very clichéd in an annoying way.
3. Use your explosions sparingly. It's fine to have some explosions to really punctuate an action sequence, for story reasons or in a major attack. The problem with the way ufotable uses them in this is that they really lose impact when they're just a consistent part of a very long action sequence. Especially when they fill the whole screen and you can't see anything else. This doesn't even take the Dragonball Z route where the explosions are very quick and then you see blurry figures throwing very quick punches and kicks. They're just long, dragged out explosions.
Final Thoughts:
This film isn't really any better than the first. There are still some intriguing ideas, strong visuals and very solid acting. But it continues to suffer from low quality leading characters, story aspects that aren't handled well and it definitely doesn't have as strong of action sequences because someone thought it would be a good idea to abuse explosions. I'll still give it a 6/10. Eventually I'll get to the last film and hope the pay off is actually worth it and we don't have the same problem as the last Fate work I looked at where there was some good build up but the ending was rubbish.
