While Oath had a the production reach its lowest point, which was already slipping in the TV series of 3rei, the story arc of Shirou was great. On the flip side, this is the point in 3rei I feel the plot starts to get away with itself BUT they brought back the hype animation we hadn't seen since season 3, something akin to the battle with corrupt Gilgamesh.
On the story front, this film focuses mainly on Beatrice and Julian's motivations, two characters I've never really cared much for. Their reasons and back story's are fine enough, they're serviceable, but when we already finished a season with a giant battle with Julian at an alter with a giant cube and tentacle esque dodging, if feels so strange to take a break and return to the same scene for another climax. This is something that's always bothered me with 3rei and obviously carries over to the film. Also the decline to almost non-existent fanservice in 3rei (besides costumes) continues. While the drought may turn with BD shorts, you'll find nothing here in the theatrical version. Fingers crossed for the BD!
Moving onto the animation, this is where the film shines and begins to reclaim some of the hype that's felt lost from the last two productions. There's lots of embellished fights, fight animation and facial animation used liberally. They unfortunately also use some 3d models at times but switch it up between the 2 styles that it always stays exciting. They also do a good job of using a cg model but gradually turning it into a 2d model as it comes closer to the screen, an effect I really appreciate. There is a bizarre sequence during the Beatrice/Illya fight where a heavy filter is used which might have been to represent Medusa's eyes, but to me it seemed like a very strange way to obscure the CG models during an extended sequence. Overall the battles are still very excited and pack a ton of oomph we haven't seen in a long time. The climax between Julian and Illya uses a lot of CG similar to the Giant Gil monster fought in season 3 but is offset by great cuts of 2d animation from Illya. This battle is also an excellent example of where the soundtrack hits right, with a humming vocal track that gives the perfect heroic Prisma climax we know and love.
Overall, meh story but fun film for me. I was very excited leaving the theatre as my expectations had dropped significantly after their last two efforts. If this leg of the story had maintained the quality of Oath, it would have been a disaster. Fortunately, they rekindled some of that Prisma magic, bringing in the fun, creative and surprising good fight animation I had so enjoyed from their previous works.
