It’s the ultimate immersion breaking move and kills dead any gravitas the film’s climax might have otherwise had. It's as if the writers were ticking through a list of ‘They’re in the movie’ check-boxes on autopilot. This culminates in a ridiculous finale that pulls some of the series’ core characters out of nowhere, just so they can feature in the final ‘end boss’ sequence. During the main series, the majority of the characters have been built up to such a power level that they never feel under any real threat in this movie. The characterisation doesn’t fare well either. Vast chunks of the film’s run-time pass as aimless conversations between characters, while on other occasions the movie fobs us off with long pans over nice-looking background art. Which is, for the most part, a real drag to make your way through. The result is a rather vacuous end-product that feels jumbled and narratively cluttered. Preferring to fall back on jagged, badly integrated CGI when it wants to get ‘flashy’. Short of a couple of decent hand-to-hand combat sequences, A Certain Magical Index: The Movie - The Miracle of Endymion never really gets into gear on the animation front either. Sadly, said excitement never really manifests. It’s then that we realise what the movie is really doing is desperately grasping at straws, bringing in a panoply of popular tropes from other genres in an ambitious attempt to inject some excitement. But then it spins on its axis again, introducing us to a fresh set of characters that are effectively magical girls - complete with outfits. The movie does some interesting things for sure: Right from the off it introduces us to a plot involving space planes and an idol singer, and for a short while you can entertain vague hopes that the film is going to go all Macross on us. Unfortunately, The Miracle of Endymion plays out more like a very extended regular episode - chop it into four and it could have just as easily been a part of the TV show itself. Standouts like One Piece: Strong World are the epitome of franchise films that actually feel like 'films', with the quality of pacing and animation to match. With a potential season three for either show remaining elusive, does this movie outing offer enough to tide fans over? The world of tie-in franchise movies has always been a bit of a minefield - a few rare gems peppering a field mostly consisting of by-the-numbers filler. This follows on from Manga Entertainment’s recent Season 2 releases of both the A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun series. Touma, Index and all your other favourite characters are back for another outing. Welcome back to Academy City - that fabled place that spawned a never-ending stream of magical high school Light Novel imitators.
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