Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

There aren't many video game players that I know of who haven't heard of Final Fantasy, and there aren't any RPG maniacs that I've met that haven't heard of Final Fantasy VII. The seventh installment of the never-ending Final Fantasy series is the most famous, and for a while I had no idea why, since I had never played the game. When the sequel, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was announced, I had no idea what it was to be about, but since I was consumed with Final Fantasy X, X-2 and the Kingdom Hearts series, I decided to give the movie a shot.

Final Fantasy ... VII: Advent Children takes place two years after the events of the game. It follows Cloud, who is still mourning the death of Aerith/Aeris and a trio of mini Sephiroth clone things as they try to obtain "Mother" and wreak destruction on the entire planet. Goody.

Story -

Well, I can say that anyone who has no idea about the events of Final Fantasy VII might be confused on the events and people that are mentioned, or it could be just my mother, but it's fairly easy to keep up with, so long as you're paying attention. While I did enjoy the story, it just seemed a little like your typical villian wants to destory the world because of some personal reason and hero, or slight anti-hero in Cloud's case, goes and takes down villian for some personal reason, so that took away from the inital enjoyment.
Score - 8

Animation -

...Dude, this is Square Enix we're talking here. Square Enix the video game company. Do I have to say anything else? ....Fine, I will.

Okay, the last Final Fantasy movie, The Spirits Within, it was a flop, why? Well, I think that it looked too darn REAL, and when you're making something animated or with CGI (that's it right?), you don't want it to look real! The whole point is for it not to look real, if it's going too look real then you're better off using real actors. When AC came around they learned that you can't make them look too real. Now, while the characters can be mistaken for real people, they still hold that animated air around them (it's all in the hair). And that, my dears, makes for some awesome animation. Satisfied?

Score - 10

Sound -

Well, the background music is well. I have the feeling that some of it are different versions of the soundtrack from the game, but again, I can't be sure. The piano compositions that play at certain points of the movie are simply beautiful, particularly the one, Cloud Smiles... I think that's it's name anyway. The remixed version of One-Winged Angel, is simply awesome, and it proves that you can mix a mad rock band with a orchestra. I wasn't fond of the ending song that plays during the credits (the one with the vocals), so I seldom watch the credits because of that...

I watched the dub version, and I loved it, I thought everyone's voices suited their apparent character... Kadaj sounding like a crazy boy dude, Cloud sounding like some... well, you get it, don't you? Though my mind doesn't agree with Aerith's voice...

Score - 9

Character -

Well, I'd say the characterization for this is fairly well, particularly Cloud, since because the end while he does show some acceptance with what's happened and what he's been told over and over again, he still seems like the same...stoic Cloud. Ahm. Yeah. I'll use Kadaj as an example again, he's a good character because you see him, and when he's in your mind you can't put him out of character, unless you're some rabid fangirl... But... yeah. Since this is a movie a character can't really grow in the allowed time period (I assume the movie takes place during maybe... three or four days?), so I can't say much... Unless we're talking Cloud, and we did already.

Score - 9

Enjoyment -

...I can say with a straight face that I enjoyed this movie. After all, you're not going to watch a movie that you don't like eighty times, now are you? I liked the actions scenes, and the animation the most... And particularly Reno... Okay, moving on.

Score - 9


All In All...

Yay! - Animation, baby! Those graphics can be synonymous with... eye candy. I think they are, too.
Nay! - Story needs to be indepth, and should maybe a little easier for the... non fans to follow... Eheheh...

Overall Score - 9

Title: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Anime(?): AC is a digitally animated film that was released in 2005 by Square-Enix (famous for the Final Fantasies, duhr!), and directed by Tetsuya Nomura (Kingdom Hearts, FFVIII, FFX, duhr!). The original version was released in Japan in 2005, and it finally made its way Stateside in April of 2006 thanks to Squenix NA and Sony.

There have been several super-deluxe ultimate editions released, as is Squenix's habit, and I'm not even going to bother covering those.

Story: I would assume that you know this, but maybe you've been hiding under a rock. Basically, it's two years after ... the Planet was almost destroyed by Meteor and Sephiroth, and now there's this disease called Geostigma striking the children, and Cloud's living life as a delivery man and being generally emo and such before he gets dragged back into things c/o three silver-haired men (ZOMG SEPHIROTHS?!).

In case you couldn't sense the sarcasm permeating the review up until this point, I'm not terribly impressed with this movie. The plot is very lacking, and I expect more from Squenix because I know they can deliver better than this.

No one gets any development (except Cloud, and that's only to from emo to zomgkickyourassSEPHIROTH!), which is disappointing, especially because we have the three silver-hairs who could've been developed pretty nicely, but are pretty much cardboard cutouts. This applies to the rest of the cast, too.

The plot is essentially something I could have found on Fanfiction.net, and about as well thought-out/executed, too. It boils down to Cloud emo, fight, fight, Cloud emo, silver-haired guys, fight, fight, Cloud emo, fight for the kids, fight, fight zomgsephiroth! Come on, Squenix! You've done better than this! Basically, it was very obvious that they did this simply to milk FFVII for everything that it's worth.

Art: It's Squenix, so it's guaranteed that the visuals are going to be astoundingly beautiful, which they are. The guys look prettier than the girls, for crying out loud!

I have a problem with the way they chose to cut this, though. Several people, both in the AC thread and in earlier reviews, have compared the editing to that of a music video. And it's not that far off. The cuts are very confusing, as are the angles, and it takes a few viewings to get used to it.

Music: It basically comes down to strings and choir background vocals mixed with hard rock. Not all that impressive, really. There are some good tracks ('For the Reunion', 'Aeris' Theme', whatever that one song is that plays during Tifa and Loz's fight, the AC version of One-Winged Angel), but it's not enough to save most of the soundtrack from repetition. Decent, overall.

Length: The repetition of the plot causes this to drag a little, despite how fast it moves along. The dragging is really obvious at the end, which is similar to Return of the King's in how long it takes to wrap up. Nomura admits this was originally planned as a twenty-minute short, but it just ended up expanding and expanding, and you can tell that it got a little bloated as it did.

Seiyuu: This is one of the saving graces of the film. I could watch this just for Rufus and Kadaj's seiyuu. And there are some top-tier seiyuu (Maaya Sakamoto as Aeris, most notably, and the guy who did Roy Mustang as Sephiroth) as well, and everyone else in the production carries their roles wonderfully.

Dub: However, what I said above doesn't go for the dub. The voices are amazingly bland when compared to their Japanese counterparts. Aeris and Tifa's voice actresses, most notably, deliver their lines like robots. The only ones who get close to their Japanese counterparts' performances are Kadaj and Sephiroth, and even those are pale imitations at best.

Performances like these are the reason I went to/usually stick to subs.

Overall: This was a disappointment to me, especially after I went out of my way to get a legal version. I'm hoping this doesn't carry over to the other Compilation of FFVII titles (though, from what I know thus far, Last Order didn't fare much better than this, and I've heard the same for Dirge of Cerberus, while the recently-released Crisis Core is said to be the best of the bunch). I know you're trying to get everything you can out of this, Squenix, but really, could you at least try for some quality?

Story: 6/10
Art: 8/10
Music: 8/10
Length: 6/10
Seiyuu: 10/10
Dub: 4/10

Overall: 42/60; 70% (D)

Final Fantasy VII, the game, will have a special place in my heart for the reason that it was the first RPG I ever completed. It holds powerful sway, so much so I've beaten it 100% many times, worked hard to raise gold chocobo's and even defeated the "unbeatable" Weapons.

Sitting down to Advent Children I came into it with mixed thoughts. On one hand I knew it would never capture the charm of the game, but since it had all the same characters it must have some good parts. Was I right? No, I was horribly wrong.

I watched this movie both subtitled with Japanese audio ... and in English. But never have I felt more empty and broken then when I finished this movie. The story itself is like a poorly written fanfiction compressed into a short movie. Character development is null because those characters developed DURING THE GAME. I thought perhaps I was being too critical on the game as a hardcore otaku, and so I watched it trying to pull away and look at it as "fanboy-ish" as possible.

Did it work? No, no it failed horribly. Even as a fan of the game I hated this movie, hated what they did to my favorite characters and what they did to an ending that I thought was very well done. The ONLY thing about this movie that I thought was decent was the art. But that's to be expected, animation quality nowadays is top-notch and since FF7 is a serious fanbase it's not hard to expect that the quality of the animation would be top-notch. So would I recommend this movie to anyone? No, definitely not

Quite frankly, there is little to no story with this anime. And the argument you have to play the game is ludicrous. James Cameron has said that you don't shouldn't have to watch a sequel without any viewing the previous installment. Should Terminator 2 really not have had any plot and just leave it to the first movie for it?

It doesn’t really advance Tifa and Cloud’s relationship either nor does it really develop the characters. Most the characters featured are just Cloud, Tifa, Reno, and the bald turk. Cloud just doesn't have the charisma to really carry the movie. And Sephiroth is still 100% ... delusional that Jenova is his mother and certain elements of the plot are of course predictable but on the other hand still leaves question. Hell, I didn't really care about Sephiroth anymore. I never get why they needed to bring him back.

I also didn't like the Geostigma angle. It was really a dumb plot device that was only selective. It really did nothing to effect Cloud's performances in the fight scene. And there’s no point to what the kids are doing rather than just having super speed and being puppets to Kadaj when possessed by him. The movie doesn't give me any reason why I should care about Denzel or Kadaj's useless henchmen more than Red XIII, Barrett, or Cid. The rest of the main cast just shows up at the resolution for the big fight at the end and that’s it. They really make no other use for the characters. Their presence was so useless that I felt the movie would have been the same without the rest of the cast.

Despite its convoluted attempt at a plot, the quality of the 3D art and animation cannot be denied, though in my opinion, I didn’t find it enough to make up for any of the bad qualities. You already know by screen shots and previews that the CG is good. But moving on, I think the re-designing and refraining from more anime-esque design characteristics did help a lot to make the characters more realistic though the anime use of hair styles and colors are still present. Tifa has a whole new outfit. Instead of wearing a mid-drift and short shorts like she wore in the game, she now wears a pretty descent dress that makes her more like a legitimate warrior than a street gang member from Final Fight. Cloud’s outfit is of course slightly changed. He wears something like a trench coat but really not. He’s really wearing something capey, if that is all a word. And the villains look like emo kids. Hell, they are stupid emo kids that need to be killed in Mexico.

The praised fights that has been acclaimed for, I found repetitive and most of all, unoriginal. To me, saying that Advent Children has awesome fight scenes is like saying the IrateGamer has the most original catch phrases. It's pretty much a rip off of Matrix. Some scenes have some cliché’ shots like when that one guy finished off Tifa at the church. I just found the final fight scene Matrix Revolutions with swords and I thought it went unreasonably and ridiculously over the top in like in the movie of Prince of Tennis, Futari no Samurai when Ryoma and Ryoga have their tennis bout. Though not at the same drastic level of stupidity.

It’s also cool they brought in the materia feature but I didn’t think was used properly enough. It is also nice we do get to see the limit break techniques. It was really cool when villains summoned I believe Bahamut from another game. I haven’t played the game in awhile so my knowledge of the summons is kind of rusty. I thought the design was awesome and was really breathtaking, but the actual fight and the way they beat him by the cast pushing up Cloud into the air for more boost was just, a huge WTF moment to me. Granted the art and animation is excellent in it’s own right, like the plot, there is too much that is still unexplained and elaborated. When the hell did they get semi-aerial abilities in this? Some people may think its cool and I will agree for visuals it is, but it kind of leaves too many questions.You do hear the argument you never apply physics in anime, but at least Dragon Ball, Macross, and Gundam have foundational principles in relation to their physics that make the action easier to follow and understand.

They got the composer from the games back to do this one and a majority of the songs you hear from the game, you’ll also hear in this movie. Especially the final song (One Winged Angel) when you fight Sephiroth int he end of the game. The music is well appropriately placed and sets the atmosphere very well. So I got nothing much to say on the music rather than that and I think it was a great idea for Square to do that. However, my main emphasis will be the voice acting in both the Japanese and English dub. Personally, I think the dub sucks. Granted they got some big names like Rachel Leigh Cook and Steven Blum to do the characters, but they weren’t really good. I don’t think Steven Blum as Vincent Valentine sounded natural and too scratchy and just didn’t really match his character like how I didn‘t think he did GTO very well. I just feel that this casting gives me the notion along with Blum's selection to play GTO and Wolverine that the fan base and industry of North American voice acting overrates him big time just because he was awesome as Spike in Cowboy Bebop. Yeah, he was great in that role, but doesn't meant he'd be great in others. The delivery of the lines in English are just broken. Rufus talks like he’s William Shatner, and Sephiroth has little to no charisma in his voice. The actors aren’t really that dynamic in English..

The Japanese version I thought was ok. Toshiyuki Morikawa (who also plays Griffith in Berserk and Vorg in Hajime no Ippo) as Sephiroth was ok. I just think Miki Shin’ichiro who has played Sephiroth in other games did a much better job. He had that dynamic delivery I’m looking for and a distinct able charisma. Keiji Fujiwara as Reno was excellent by portraying a character who is really laid back and informal. Though the Japanese version is much better, or so you would expect, it’s not really the best acting I heard in anime granted that the Japanese track has hired a few big name seiyuus. I think Cloud's voice was good, but I just don't think his personality gives him any charisma to really carry the movie as I said earlier.

In the words of the great Yoshiyuki Tomino, “People go to the movies today to see movement more than story, and then you end up with something like the third episode of The Matrix.” When it comes to this anime, truer words can never be spoken. For my personal standards of when I want to watch something, I like to see an engaging story. Especially in the case of Final Fantasy. I think Square could have done this, but they didn’t. I say personal enjoyment of this anime is probably based more on your own personal expectations between story and/or animation itself. But I don’t think Square’s reasons are enough to justify a terrible plot with no point.

I was kinda sad due to the lack of references made to Aeris. She is my favorite FF7 character after all. I am, on the other hand, furious due to the fact that Tifa got a considerable amount of screen time, and the rumors that the boy was their son. He does not look a thing like Cloud or Tifa, but you know there is such a thing as "when there's smoke, there's fire" right?

Cloud is even more handsome in this movie, since his features were enhanced. Actually everyone looked great. I was glad to see Barret, Vincent, Yuffie, Cid et al. I was kinda ... sad that they got little screen time, but then again they were just supporting characters anyway. I was wondering what happened to Cait Sith though. Why did he ditch his body? That's how people knew him so he should stay that way.

Who knew the turks (especially Reno) were a bunch of good looking people? Back when they were in chibi like form, I imagined Reno to look like some idiot but he was actually cool. Kadaj et al weren't bad either. Really nice to look at, but we all know he's evil deep inside.

The story was a bit hard to understand at first, but then again I find myself always like this. I didn't get the virus aspect - maybe I wasn't listening enough. I was too distracted by Cloud anyway.

That Sepiroth and Cloud fight scene sure did bring some memories. I love that background music that goes "Sepiroth!" Super cool. I held my breath in some spots and it was really exciting. The fight scene was well "choreographed" and it was short enough to keep you asking for more, but not too long to make you wanna skip the whole fight scene.

To summarize, I love it because of the superb graphics, great music, great fight scenes, and of course, the wonderful Cloud Strife.

There’s absolutely nothing smart, deep, or subtle to be found in this movie. Which is precisely the way it should be. Advent Children is about as clever as an unplugged blender.

This anime takes places two years after the successful 1997 game, Final Fantasy VII. So if you havent played or heard about them, do not fear for Advent doesnt require any background or even a story to make it enjoyable. And that alone is an accomplishment.

Synopsis:
*Midgar has been reduced into ruins and its people are suffering from a mysterious illness. There isn't any cure, and it brings death to those who are effected by ... it. Cloud is alone and he has been living with the orphans. He feels guilt of what he has done over the past couple of years. Then, one day, Cloud receives a phone call asking for help in defeating a man named Kadaj. Kadaj, a mysterious being, and the rest of his gang seek their "Mother". Soon, they prey on the orphans living with Cloud. Faced with the conflict and remembering an old friend's word, Cloud decides to stop Kadaj. And so... the battle begins.*

Lets get this out in the open, this movie is all about fan service. Many people have reprimanded this movie as somewhat pointless. It is, I know. Luckily for them, I am fond of Tetsuya Nomura, the director of this film and the genius behind Square Enix. But even as an aficionado, I am not too blinded by my loyalty to see that this is the directorial equivalent of Nomura beating his chest and waving his penis at us for a couple of hours.

However, it would be a good idea to review movies instead of moaning about what you would have preferred!

There is no denying that Advent is one of the best action movies in anime history. The effects are technically impressive, groundbreaking even. The animation will blow you away, as Square Enix always has. The action sequences are parred with real vigor. It is relentless taunting you with masterful choreography. This breathtaking visual along with the classic and magnificently brilliant music is enough to overshadow the mediocre substance. Even the movie's theme -- hollow words about victory through sacrifice -- is pitched to this constituency.I watch the whole movie with my jaw dropped and my mouth overflowing with water. You can only interpret my me in two ways, it can only mean that I am transfixed by its "epicness" or saw through the fancy facade.

But to honest ,There’s just nothing engaging about the characters themselves. There’s also very little to help a novice to tell these characters apart. The movie originally just wanted to satisfy the people who wanted Cloud and Tifa to get together, and have a movie for themselves about their life. Instead, though they got this meaningless but immediate gratifying movie. If you cant stand a movie that doesnt go anywhere, then this is not for you.

I will never know why reviewers always start off reviewing films for their face value, but then after a while spend all their time looking for some dark underlying tone to each movie, or think that it only has any real meaning if it is in black and white and in a foreign tongue. Because these same reviewers stand there telling that the script and content of so called classic anime films is the best you will ever see! This film is what it is. Fun, loud, obtuse, visually-stunning action-packed masterpiece, nothing else....

To this day, I still don't see what people see in Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Other than some pretty neat fight scenes and stylistic action, this is a shell of a movie, and one that any kid with a penchant for action could have written.

In one sense, it leaves writing a review for this film very hard to write, because the flaws of Advent Children are so basic and readily apparent. This is a movie completely lacking in the major attributes that can make or break (as they do in this case) any film. There is a laughable storyline, no character development whatsoever, and a ... bunch of Final Fantasy VII characters make cameos simply for the sake of being there and getting squeals of delight from their fans.

I'll be the first to tell you that I love Final Fantasy VII, the game. I even like the universe it takes place in. But when a feature length film has much less story that a 1997 Playstation 1 video game, we have problems.

The story is just a vessel to get Sephiroth and the good-guy gang back in. There's a plot involving trying to cure "Geostigma," some strange affliction affecting children, but it all takes a back seat to the fight scenes. The actual development of the plot is terribly rushed; we're whisked from one fight to the next, with all new characters, with little to go on. Before you know it, the whole gang is back together, good and bad, Genova makes an appearance, and there's a big bad summon and final fight.

On that note, it is very hard to watch this movie if you have not played FF VII. Essentially no background time is given to any of the characters; combined with the way in which they sort of pop-up at any given time (like Barret and Yuffie at the end), and you have a recipe for confusion and lack of interest if you don't have prior knowledge of them.

It's too bad, because some of the nods are nice. Cell phones ring out with the level up theme from Final Fantasy. One Winged Angel makes a nice musical appearance. The animation is great, and the opening motorbike fight scene oozes cool. The voice acting is quite good. It's nice seeing voices lent to our favorite Final Fantasy characters, and they all seem to fit.

Sadly, though, it doesn't fill the void of a rushed, barebones plot and lazy character cameos. My suggestion; turn off your brain before you watch this, and try to just enjoy the fight scenes, because there isn't really anything else to go on.

2/10

Overview:

FF7 Advent Children gets a lot of hate online, and some of it is quite justifiable. The story in this movie isn't very good, it doesn't further develop 7's beloved characters, and it isn't really a great continuation to the epic storyline. Why did I rate it so high? I will explain.

Story and characters: 5/10 warning spoilers!

We see that Cloud is still crushed by Aeris's death and isn't living with Tifa, because he's being a whiny bitch(I actually liked Tifa in the first place). The world is being ravaged by a mysterious disease and our heroes have all mostly gone their separate ways. The plot ... picks us when some remaining clones of Sephiroth are searching for Jenovah's remains so they can bring back everyone's favorite human/demon hybrid from the dead to wreak havoc. Apparently Sephiroth doesn't even need to be alive to be a massive dick to everyone. He is responsible for the disease that is ravaging the surviving human population by tainting the lifestream with his spirit or some bullshit. Anyways, Rufus Shinra is alive for... some reason and conveniently has Jenovah's head with him. The whiny clone Kadaj snatches the head after Rufus throws it out a window like a dumbass and Kadaj turns into Sephiroth by using the Jenovah cells. I guess this makes at least some sense since even in the main game, Sephiroth's original body was incapacitated and hanging out in the Northern Crater and it was actually the Jenovah cell version that we saw throughout most of the game besides the flashback scenes. Cloud fights an epic duel with Sephiroth and although Cloud is on the ropes for most of the fight, he manages to spring omnislash on the overconfident Sephiroth and take him out. This somehow also cures the disease despite the fact that killing Sephiroth would probably just send his spirit back to the lifestream where it was causing the disease in the first place! We also see Cloud has gained some level of confidence and even smiles, perhaps hinting that he has found some solace over Aeris's death.

Art: 10/10

The CG when this movie came out in 2005 it was absolutely fucking amazing! We had never seen CG this good before. It didn't have the level of realism seen in Spirits Within, but kept the high detailed backgrounds without losing the anime inspired feel of the original character designs. This combination of realism and anime art created a beautiful looking movie that still looks excellent today in 2014.

Music: 10/10

I realize how cliche it is to say this soundtrack "gets your blood pumping" but GOD DAMN! We get a heavy metal version of Sephiroth's legendary leitmotif "One Winged Angel", along with new remixes of other fan favorite tracks like "Jenovah Absolute"! Nobuo Uematsu really brings his A game on this one and it is one of the most enjoyable highlights of the movie.

Enjoyment: 10/10

This movie has action, atmosphere, fun, looks great, sounds great, and is a very enjoyable experience. It is no artistic masterpiece, but it wasn't supposed to be. It was a fun action movie based off a fan favorite video game.

Overall: 8/10

You can't go into this movie expecting an amazingly well written continuation of the FF7 storyline. Instead go in expecting an action movie that looks great, sounds great, and is quite simply enjoyable. If you watch this movie with the right attitude than it really is quite good.

Let me start this review by saying that it was never my intention to write one, specially one about Final Fantasy Advent Children. Also, I'd like to state for an obvious reason that I've played and finished the original game in which this movie was "inspired" on, Final Fantasy VII.

By the time the game was launched it was revolutionary in all its aspects. Both visually and the way the plot was developed consistently throughout the game. Every character had its importance and unique plot giving the player/viewer a chance to relate himself to many different personality traits while subtly, leading both the story and character ... development to a climax around the main character, Cloud and the main villain, Sephiroth.

Final Fantasy: Advent Children forgets all this. It uses all the good aspects of what was made before it, the way the characters relate with each other, and glues an history that had no possible plausible way of continuing without a "revival of the dead villain" archetype which was so blatantly used I felt offended. It is indeed, a movie for fanboys. It adds nothing new.

Visually, it is not better than average. It's just the sort of new 3D-hype movies style that shows no sign of differentiation from any other regular 3D hollywood movie. Generally, one would expect small details to differ from the mainstream, but FFAV lacks it.

The music and sound indeed do their job, but do not live up to the standards, yet again, of Nobuo Uematsu. It will do the trick but won't make your heart race, and considering once more that this movie was indeed made for Final Fantasy fans (otherwise it would make no sense), it offers nothing new to the spectator.

It does have some interesting battle sequences but they are not more than that, just interesting, so if your planning on watching a good sequel to FF7 or a good new story revolving your favourite characters prepare to be disappointed. Cloud is not Cloud with his problems. Sephiroth is not a crazy maniac.
And if you've never played FF7 before this is also not worth watching as the movie assumes that you've played it before.

It was alright. It's nowhere near the masterpiece that I thought I was going to watch, based on my friends' excited, rather fanboy-ish reactions, but I can't say that it was a waste of my time. I definitely do recommend it, but with the following disclaimer: don't believe the hype, just enjoy the action, but don't expect anything too lasting.

The story, first off, is a trainwreck. I'm not going to regurgitate the details here since I'm not supposed to and I trust the reader has access to Wikipedia, but let's just say it's an insult to the FF7 legacy, and ... I'm saying that as someone who thought FF7, while a fairly good RPG, a classic for sure, isn't, say, in the top 10 of my list and likely not even top 20. The antagonist is a generic raving, cackling lunatic and almost none of the FF7 protagonists save for Cloud and Tifa get any reasonable amount of character development or even dialogue. It's just ridiculous. They basically threw characters into the movie just to placate the angry mob of fans that would be disappointed if their favorite wasn't in.

The entire movie is just an extended series of fight sequences. Very good fight sequences, actually, probably some of the best I've seen in my life, as far as CG goes. But still just fight sequences. For anyone who has not played FF7 or does not have any background in the material (not myself but a few of my friends who watched with me), none of it will make any sense whatsoever. Heck, I played the game a long time ago and so even I was occasionally confused, wondering "who the hell is that?" during the scene with Aeris and Zack [<-- didn't figure out it was him until after the movie]. They never really gave the characters a proper introduction.

The sound accompanying the animation is very good-- basically new, usually improved versions of the FF7 original soundtrack in most cases. Can't use the MIDI's, after all. So, no complaint there, as it would be improper to introduce significantly new music.

So, um, I'm not sure where that leaves me. I want to write more, but there's so little to write about. The overall content is quite shallow. They would've been better off just animating FF7's original storyline, with some cuts here or there. Instead we get a pale shadow that tries to steal all the best parts of the game, going so far as to even recreate a "new Sephiroth." Sigh.

That's not to say that there aren't any decent scenes in the movie. There's some good humor, particularly the famous scene with Tifa and the cellphone (can't spoil it). But the overarching storyline is quite weak and million dollar action scenes are no excuse.

Conclusion: great action scenes, wonderful animation. Some of it is genuinely ground breaking. A must watch for that reason. But don't believe the hype. This is not a classic, and altogether, it is a somewhat disappointing ending to Cloud's story.

It REALLY helps to have played the original FF7 game in order to appriciate and understand this movie. And, no, Kingdom Hearts does not count! The plot of FF7:AC assumes you've played and picks up 2 years after the game ends. Some guy friends of mine have said they liked the movie even without playing but they were completely lost. Honestly, if you're an action fan you'll like this movie...... about 80 of the movie is raw action and jaw-dropping fight scenes.

There's little plot in the movie because you get the game plot woven in. In the first 5 minutes you get an intro ... into the lifestream, Jenova, and who Sephiroth is. The fight scenes are amazing and if you're not careful [fanboys: take notice] you might find your mouth hanging wide open with drool coming out. The CG animation is so unbelievable; the characters look so real that you can see freckles on the skin and strands of hair. The animation is truly some of the best I've seen.

All the popular characters from the game were in this movie: Cloud, Aeris, Yuffie, Cid, Barret, Vincent, Tifa, and Sephiroth. It was really awsome to see all the characters again after playing the game, all with new looks. Reno and Rude of the Turks were the comic relief, as they were in the game. There's no romance in this movie, but you do get some insight into how Cloud feels about Aeris. I wonder why there were no chocobos?!

Voice acting was pretty good in the dubbed..... except for Yuffie and Caith Sith, they were hard to listen too. Vincent's voice was done by Steve Blum [has also done Spike in Cowboy Bebop] who was a PERFECT choice. Blum's voice made Vincent even more sexy. But nothing tops the Japanese voices in the subbed, and this was considered importance since this was the first time these characters were given voices.

I've played the original FF7 game, played kingdom Hearts, and even cosplayed as Aeris - Because of this, I have a strong understanding and appriciation for this movie and I honestly feel it serves as a good ending to one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series! The game really should be fresh in your mind in order to understand everything in the movie.

This movie got so much hype before it was launched but of course by todays standards that means it will amount to rubbish.

I was looking forward to this as generaly FF games have an excellent story to it and I thought if it wasgoing to be in a movie it would be awsome but again, it was a dissapointment, the story was very bland with terrible lines and overal very boring. One strange thing I have noticed is how did Cloud get the virus? How did anyone get the virus?

Now to the character development....and thats it, there isn't any. You learn nothing new about the ... characters and the new characters are just as bad. When you devlop a dead person more than the main character you have a problem. Of course the FF7 fanboys will be saying "but you have to play VII to get the full experiance" they are talking rubbish, I have played the game and the experiance is not any different in fact it is worse because you know how the characters might react in that sort of situation.

Now on to the English VAs. To be honest I think they aare some of the worst I have heard, it is a mixture of monotoned characters and overacting. I really dont see why Tifa would have such a dull voice you would be expecting here to have a little bit of energy, Cloud mabye but I still think no, the monotoned voice does not make him sound cool.

Now on to the music and it is superb. Now this is really bad I am enjoying the music which is supposed to enhance the movie more than the actual movie. Nobou Uematsu did the music for this film and I salute him because he has created something in which I can't complain about.

Some fight scenes were good while others were just to over the top to enjoy them.

Overall it isn't really a bad thing if you this on as it should be forgotten as quickly as possible. Even if you are a FF7 fanboy you should think twice about purchasing this.

I am utterly amazed at how many negative and mediocre ratings and reviews this has gotten on this site... Are these people just nostalgic over something that didn't get added from FFVII the game?!

This movie is epic... period... watch it, love it.

Story:
A continuation of FFVII 2 years later, shows the world recovering from everything that happened in the game. Connects to the game storyline perfectly, and accurately represents it all. Great development, and the concept behind the remnants of Sephiroth was a great idea and made for something really special, and even set up for another story to be told beyond this in FFVII's ... line.

Art:
The best that exists... No... really, it doesn't get any better than this. Equal with FF spirits within of course, same company. As real as it gets. CGI is the future of anime.

Sound:
If you loved FFVII game soundtrack, you'll love this, it's the same.

Characters:
Continues accurate development of all characters from the game, so again, this is a 10 easy... Yuffie FTW! she's too cute... Miss Zack Fair though(makes appearance) (the REAL soldier Cloud could only hope to be)

Basically, if you've played FFVII, you "should" love and appreciate this. If you haven't played FFVII, you should still be able to enjoy and appreciate this, as the DVD has a "catch you up" video you can watch first that more or less fills in what takes place overall in the game's storyline. So this should be a no-brainer.

Final Fantasy VII IS SUCCESS. Final Fantasy VII IS DOMINANCE. That’s the first thing that will gush through the mind of FFVII fantards who haven’t played a single RPG since. Not that Final Fantasy VII is rubbish (I love it personally). But what I find rubbish is the sequels it spawns. Apart from Crisis Core, every FFVII sequel has been rubbish. Dirge of Cerberus was a bad attempt at a First Person Shooter, Before Crisis isn’t released here and Advent Children… well, this is why I am reviewing it.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is the sequel to the critical acclaimed ‘Final Fantasy VII’. Set two ... years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, Midgar have become a ruin and the remaining survivors live around the outskirts and try to build a new city, named Edge. But there is a strange disease that has arisen named ‘Geostigma’, which many citizens have been affected by. Then enters Cloud Strife, an ex-mercenary who now works as a courier for the ‘Strife Delivery Service’, and whom was the main character of Final Fantasy VII. During his delivery, he gets ambushed by three mysterious female, I mean male, villains who are planning something devious. Cloud wants to know what they are planning.

Honestly, Geostigma is a horribly bad plot device. It’s as if it was thought up at the last second and integrated into the film horribly. It does have an explanation, but it’s a pretty predictable one and something that Square-Enix would do to try and make this film interesting. Except it wasn’t, not to this extent. Advent Children was planned to be a 23 minute OVA about someone requesting a message to Cloud. And Nomura laid his poisonous, decaying fingers onto it. So plot development has failed there.

But the character has to make up for it, right? Well, I was wishing the characters would be as interesting as they were in Final Fantasy VII. Just at least by a half. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Cloud Strife hasn’t evolved at ALL since the end of Final Fantasy VII. For two years, he has been stuck into this self-blaming, one-dimensional character that hasn’t really got much of a personality. I preferred Cloud before the ‘event’ happened, which transformed him into this. Tifa is basically there for emotional support, trying to bring ‘Cloud’ out of his self-blame state. Then we have new character Denzel, an orphan child with geostigma and who is desperate to become better. He isn’t as bad as I thought now that I think about it. And let’s move onto the three villains. Huzzah.

Loz – Cry baby who want his mother. Honestly, I think the character IS supposed to be a woman, despite his physique.
Yazoo - …there’s nothing you can find annoying about him. He is emotionless and that’s what I like in an evil villain
Kadaj – Honestly, he is the most interesting villain of the trio. Despite his feminine look, which I don’t get since Nomura is WAY obsessed with them, he is pretty much an okay character

The rest are subjected to pointless cameos, which don’t improve or add to the film, except they are there for fanservice.

I do like the soundtrack, but it’s expected. Final Fantasy never really fails in the soundtrack department. I mean, come on, it’s Nobuo Uematsu, he is a legend as far as I’m concerned. Not only does he made really great music, but he also made a worthy remake of the ‘One Winged Angel’. I never really found out why it’s all that great to be honest. But I listening it to it.

Animation-wise, there are times where it feels far too grey or dark and it becomes dull. Final Fantasy VII was bright despite the dark times it was in and even inside Midgar. It is great animation nevertheless, because of the tremendous amount of work that was put into making a great CGI film. One of the Key locations is The City of the Ancients (Forgotten City), which I find marvelous, especially the water effects inside it. And the character models are greatly detailed and would be excellent if they were used as in-game graphics. I think they focused so much on the nice graphics that they forgot about the storyline.

Actually, everything about the film is utter fanservice. That said as a fan of Final Fantasy VII, I wish they didn’t answer the pleading call of rabid fans that spend their whole life commenting on forums, creating fanfics to try and continue the story in their bad-grammar style. Honestly, the first draft of it has potential and I would have been happy with 23 minutes of it. But now we have a dreadful film with a dreadful climax which I find to be badly-written and executed.

Summary

Square-Enix have ruined a classic game with the follow-up, Advent Children. It hardly resolves everything, has ludicrous new characters which are randomly thrown in, made the main character broken BEYOND recovery and is just fanservice. Yes, IT IS FOR FANS. I doubt anyone else would want to watch this film who has no knowledge of FF7 save for Nobuo Uematsu or breathtaking CGI.

They have focused so much on art that everything else just fall apart.

3/10

Review by Chrono Mizaki

If you look at the other reviews for this movie such as Rotten Tomatoes, I can understand why they gave it such a bad score.
Not everyone plays video games or may not even know what the Final Fantasy series is. (Please, I hope everyone knows).

To be honest, I watched the movie before playing the actual game. But I knew almost all the characters (instead for Vincent and Zack) since they all appeared in the Kingdom Hearts game. It is quite complicated to know whats going on in the movie if someone has never played the game before. But for me, I read the ... game summary.

Overall, I gave this movie a 10. I bough Advent Children just last year and I can tell you it's one of my favorite movies.

in one sentence : surely an insonmia healer , watching this movie made me sleepy since 10 minutes.

story :
blurred . purposeless . wierd . minim intrigues .

art :
breathtaking . it's flawless and very eye-candy . futuristic yet fantastic .with semi-matrix style wrapping the good looking characters .

directing,cinematography :
slow motion made my brain slower and slower , it made me fell asleep just in minutes while the movie is hours . the director copied Andy and Larry Wachowsky's directing style a.k.a. a la the Matrix wrapped in Final Fantasy's background.
...
character:
A movie filled with eccentric character with beautiful appearance ,as usual . But , only one character can be told as a protrude one , Cloud Strife . Just because he's the hero(and the main character) .

Enjoyment :
Just like i typed before . Another treatment for insonmia patient is watching this movie.

Overall :
FF is The Matrix wrapped in more Fantasy , more action , more out-of-mind in blue setting .

Eight years later, Final Fantasy VII finally got a sequel. Under tight scrutiny by Cloud fans everywhere, here's how it measures up:

Story: I won't lie; unless you're a Final Fantasy VII fan, you won't appreciate the story for what it really is. (You probably won't even understand it, for that matter.) The film references story elements from the original game heavily. Though there is a short recap at the beginning, it doesn't go as in-depth as it really needs to. This is the story's one major setback; a few more explanations was all it would have taken to hook a few more FFVII fans. For ... those already hooked, no worries! The game's canon is being faithfully continued here.

Art: I don't think I really need to explain this, but the graphics are outstanding; a huge improvement on the Playstation game's pixelated world. Characters do look real if you don't think too much, but several clever camera angles and movements remind us that this is an animated film (albeit a very sophisticated one).

Sound: Of all the Final Fantasy series soundtracks, VII's is easily the most recognizable. Nobuo Uematsu returns for Advent Children, recreating the game's music for full orchestra, often with a rock band thrown in for added effect. Everything from the opening theme to "One-Winged Angel" has been made over for the better. The character's voice actors are spectacular, English and Japanese alike; though any number of voices could have been imagined for them during the game, the ones we got seem to fit perfectly.

Character: Final Fantasy VII was character-driven to begin with. The whole focus of the story is Cloud's inability to move on (yeah, he still angsts), and the new villain is trying to obtain a goal he doesn't even fully understand himself (guess who's pulling the strings here), but beyond that there isn't a whole lot of character development to speak of. On the other hand, dead characters stay dead (thankfully), and every supporting character from the game makes a CGI-appearance of some kind. Nostalgia, anyone?

Enjoyment: Depends on who you are, really. Die-hard FFVII fans will love seeing Cloud being forced yet again into a battle he initially doesn't want, only to have to face his arch-nemesis in a battle that can really only be called "incredible". It is also worth noting that our dead flower girl friend stays that way, despite some throw-away cameo scenes that serve no purpose other than to please the fanboys.

Overall: Fans have waited seemingly forever for this, and in my opinion it was worth the wait; it finishes Cloud's personal story in a satisfying way, and its ending is loads more clear than was the original game's. This is a must-see for any Final Fantasy VII fan.

Well then, lets sit down, take off our nostalgia goggles, put on our thinking caps and review "Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children."

Remember when you first found out there was going to be a FF7 movie and was like, "Awesome!" Then you heard the title was "Advent Children" and nervously thought, "Well that's a stupid name." That was your early warning.

Really its amazing what you get away with when you've established a strong fan-base. Just ask Kyoani.

I think there might have been a plot, but even after repeated viewings with the "complete" version, this is still unclear. Apparently children are involved, but their relevance to ... the story is rendered inconsequential later on and just forgotten about. Any established plot elements are quickly thrown out the window once the fighten' begins and we really ramp up the fanservice and suddenly, all your favorite FF7 characters show up out of no where to fight Bahamut. Beam me up Scotty because I think this series of events makes no sense.

I watched this with a mixed group of friends, some of whom played the game, some hadn't. Advent Children was an uncomfortable embarrassment to watch. Its one of those things that made me want to crawl in a hole and die rather than deal with the social anxiety. WARNING: Advent Children may cause your friends to not like you. Maybe that's a bit extreme, but now my friends are wary whenever I recommend something to watch.

"I loved FF7 Advent Children! It was cool seeing my favorite characters again!" WRONG! The characters in Advent Children are sad caricatures of their in-game counterparts. In-game Cloud was a well humored tough-guy with a cool attitude. Basically he was Bruce Willace. In Advent Children he's a soulless angst-ridden creature who saunters about his landscape with a lone wolf bug up his butt. Sephiroth, who is a complex web of emotion, psychopathy, and plagued by chronic superiority complex is reduced to a generic final boss, which serves merely to put some closure on this befuddling narrative. Why is Sepheroth fighting Cloud? Well, because he was summoned and because he's evil. How's that for a climatic ending? Its no surprise that no effort was put into the movies plot when all people wanted to see was the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth at the end. But, Sephiroth is dead right? Welp, looks like we're going to have to make some serious leaps in logic if we're going to make this stupid scene happen. The whole movie is just trying to set up this one scene, damning the consequences.

Can't we all just agree that FF7 is awesome and Advent Children sucks? Is that really so much of a betrayal of the franchise? No, it is the franchise who has betrayed us.

Man this was fucking awful.

FF7 was great, so I thought this one would be a pretty safe bet. Looking back I probably shouldn't have expected anything better, but for some reason, I figured this one would at least have the potential to not completely suck. There's a ton of stuff you could've done with the idea that would've been awesome---for example, you could set the story like 20 years in the future and have Cloud be a fat butthole who runs a McDojo in the middle of Virginia, make him get into fights with dark sorcerers (his landlord) or whatever, maybe even get Nicolas Cage ... to do the VA work (preferably for every character) or some terrible techno DJ (Nine Inch Nails?) to do the soundtrack, and then have like, a final showdown between Cloud and a CGI rendition of Anderson Cooper where Cooper just publicly beats the hell out of him as the entire nation of Japan cheers him on...the possibilities are endless, really. But no, instead of giving me something I can sit down and actually watch for more than 20 minutes, these chimps pulled a fast one and basically gave me the artistic equivalent of a bunch of dudes hanging out in a windtunnel blasting Creed and shitting all over themselves for two solid hours.

Here's what it all boils down to: a bunch of losers sword fight in a church while a buttrock mix CD plays on loop in the background. Actually, that's not entirely fair: occasionally the music will switch up to some ominous Latin chanting or the Babby's First FruityLoops sondtrack, and sometimes they'll stop fighting for a minute to flip their hair and yell about irritable bowel syndrome or whatever disease it was that they were blabbering on about, but really, for the most part its pretty consistently just a bunch of computer animations slapping each other while generic, embarrassing, faux-classical fart music blares out from the distance. If, on a scale of 1 to 10, that sounds awesome as hell to you, then go ahead and pick up a copy of this movie and show it to everyone at your trailer park, because I'm sure it'll be a big hit there, like Nickelback, or incest. Otherwise you can go ahead and skip this one because, Final Fantasy fan or not, you'd probably lose less brain cells falling down a flight of stairs than watching this for any extended length of time.

OK, to be honest, I guess there actually is sort of a story somewhere in here. But you're not going to pay attention to it, because it's really fucking dumb. Its essentially just an excuse to shoehorn in cameos from the video game and to help the audience make some sense of the 98 fight scenes that happen throughout the movie. You know that show Jurassic Fight Club on the History Channel, where they waste a solid hour of your life telling you about the mechanics behind the CGI just so they don't look like complete manchildren whose entire reason for existence revolves around making computer generated dinosaurs fight each other for the amusement of grandpas and conspiracy theorists? It's literally the most fitting analogy I can make for Advent Children. The fanfiction-tier plot is really just to protect the reputation of the director and the screenwriter, because without it, it'd be a lot more apparent to the naked eye that all this film is is a couple of neckbeards making their favorite RPG characters duke it out like a bunch of 10 year olds. I can almost imagine the staff meetings: "Dude, dude, dude wouldn't it be fucking SICK if we had Sephiroth COME BACK TO LIFE, and then have Cloud FIGHT HIM AGAIN?!?!" "Yeah, yeah, and then like, the city they're in? We can call it something totally extreme, like EDGE!!" "HOLY SHIT, LET ME SUCK YOUR DICK BRO!!!!!" There's just no way a completely static, emotionless, fanboy jerkoff movie like this could come about from a production team that wasn't completely up their own asses in FF7 fanboyism themselves.

One thing I can't fault them on though is the artwork. As terrible as everything else was, this movie is infinitely watchable precisely because you can mute the sound and take the visuals in by themselves. There was a stunning amount of attention paid to detail---the landscapes are breathtakingly expansive, objects come complete with ticks and scratches and little imperfections barely noticeable to anyone not looking for them, weapons are tinged with bits of rust and draped in decorative, exuberant, extravagant designs, hair actually seems like its built through millions of individual strands meshing together rather than just clumps, forced on top of each other, shifting in robotic, strictly regimented formations when the animation director runs wind.exe (to the point where it manages to distract from how fucking ridiculous the actual hairstyles are), shadows are cleverly layered and colors blend and uncannily realistic textures pop out with almost as much force as the various misplaced explosions littered throughout the film---it's just really really VIP-tier shit. The animation is smooth and as lifelike as jumping 17 feet in the air to shoot a dragon with a triple barreled handheld shotgun can be, and the cuts/camera angles are exaggerated and topsy tervy and completely vertigo inducing, but in a lot of cases it actually works to the movie's advantage and gives it a surreal live-action type feel. So yeah, no complaints here. If you just want to zone out to some flashing pictures and don't want to be bothered with things like plot or cohesion, keep it on your shortlist.

I already talked about the sound. It sucks. Well, not really. I mean, it's decently composed and sufficiently produced and everything, but the music itself just sounds like someone sprayfarting on a reverb pedal while a chimpanzee bashes a cello over a Casio MT-540 programmed to only play the string synths from 50 Cent's "In Da Club." If you like that sorta thing, be my guest and buy the soundtrack. If not, don't even bother unmuting this movie because you're probably going to throw up.

The Japanese VAs are pretty good. The English VAs aren't too bad themselves, although to be honest with you I only paid attention to Steven Blum because he's the king. Fuck everyone else.

If you're familiar with FF7 you should already be familiar with the characters too. If you're not, go play FF7 and forget this shit, because you're not going to learn a single goddamn thing about them from this film. Seriously, not a single one of them develops or grows or changes in any significant way. No introspection of character motives, no deeper examination of any character backstories, nothing. From the minute you meet them, everyone's personality is set in stone. This might not even be that huge of a problem if two thirds of the cast weren't completely fucking stoic to begin with. I don't know who thought it would be entertaining to watch a bunch of boring chumps prance around for two hours shooting at each other because of some bullshit nobody actually paid attention to, but whoever it was should be sacked, and then hopefully punched in the sack---they're the reason Advent Children is so painful to sit through. Not that it really matters because Square Enix made a gazillion dollars of cocaine/hooker money off this movie alone, but still. You couldn't have at least thrown me a bone here and made characters that were at least somewhat interesting? You didn't even have to make new ones. You had a whole cast of them all ready and just waiting to be expanded upon. Instead you gave me this.

Normally I try not to fall asleep during movies, even if they're horrendous pieces of shit---I managed to stay awake through at least 5 Steven Seagal movies (I was laughing too hard to doze off), Alone in the Dark, the entire Dolph Lundgren filmography, Catwoman, Cool as Ice, Ultraviolet, Collateral Damage, and many more movies that have brought lesser men to the point of unconsciousness. To date, only 4 films have managed to knock me out: Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jingle All the Way, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Make no mistake, this movie is not even close to being so bad it's funny. It's fucking bad, but it's on the complete opposite side of the spectrum from funny. The flashy artwork was enough to keep my interest for about 10 minutes, but once this movie exposed itself as the horrible shitbeast that it is, I was struggling to keep my eyes open long enough to even understand why everyone else in the room was making fun of it. As a piece of cinema, it wasn't worth the DVD-RW I burned it onto. However, if what you're looking for isn't a moviegoing experience, but rather an advanced, non-addictive sleep aid to replace Ambien or Nyquil, this may be exactly what you're looking for. On the traditional 10 point scale, the actual movie is a 2. But the 3 hour long nap I took while it was playing? 10/10, would try again.

So yeah, overall, fuck this movie. Watch it if you like things that suck.

If there is one thing Square-Enix is good at, well, it's cashing in on sequels and remakes, most of which are completely worthless. While I have no problems with ports, it's the remakes and sequels which really grind my gears. The FF III remake was horrible in so many ways (it introduced characters who were nothing more than names). FF IV for the DS wasn't much better (can't even use Bahamut without Zeromus countering...what is with all the countering?). Anyways, VII wasn't my first Final Fantasy, nor is it my favorite, and certainly by no means is it the best in the series. However, I ... am by no means a VII hater as I certainly do love the game. Is it overrated...yes...but it is by no means horrible. My love for the game was ultimately "pissed on" by the creation of this and other side stories/sequels. I can no longer view the FF VII universe the same way after viewing this. Anyways, onto the review.

*OCCASIONAL SPOILERS AHEAD*

Story:

As many assumed, the story is a continuation of Final Fantasy VII. However, I use the word continuation very loosely here. The story is easy enough to follow, but it's certain things about the story which fuel my extreme hatred for it. The thing that bothered me most are the inclusion of Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. The original story pretty much defeats any reason these three should exist. Yes, I understand that it's supposed to be a continuation, but therein lies the problem that any sequel should exist. The inclusion of Rufus also pissed me off. Those who are familiar with FF VII saw exactly what happened, and know that what Rufus achieved is physically impossible. Upon seeing his inclusion, I no longer cared for the movie. The next thing that irritated me was Bahamut Sin. What is it? What is it doing there? I have always liked Bahamut, and this was simply done in bad taste. There was no reason for Bahamut Sin to be in this movie, and in all actuality there was no reason this movie should even exist.

*END SPOILERS*

Art:

The art is superb and one of the only quality factors found within this movie. We get full CG versions of the FF VII characters. It's beautiful. Some of the designs are a bit different but I see no reason to rant about that. Everything about the art is, well, great.

Sound:

The sound was the other factor of quality found within this jumbled mess. I am so thankful Nobuo Uematsu helped compose the music for Advent Children. A plethora of musical genres is used, ranging from symphonic to rock. I was mostly pleased with the soundtrack, which is more than I can say about FF XII and XIII. Even X had its weak moments. However, that is neither here nor there. Kyosuke Himuro of Boøwy contributes "Calling" to the ending credits. So if you're a fan of him, you'll be quite happy. Of course several FF VII classics return albeit a little reimagined. Overall though, I was pleased.

Character:

The characters had all already been developed. We had seen every facet of emotion possible from the characters in FF VII. Square-Enix wanted to please the fanboys of this game (mostly westerners) by creating a pointless sequel with equally as pointless characters. In my opinion FF VII was complete. There was nothing more that could be done. There was no development, and how could there be? FF VII was done, and we get nothing more than what I wish wasn't real. A sequel that contradicts many events from the first game. Essentially characters new and old, who do nothing but ruin FF VII. I am just thankful they hadn't completely ruined the Zack storyline yet ("sigh" see Crisis Core).

Enjoyment:

As I stated before, the appearance of a certain character from VII immediately reduced my enjoyment to nothing. If it wasn't for the quality CG and action, I can't find any logical reason someone would enjoy this film (except the fanboys of course). To go on a small tangent, I find it quite hilarious that most people who view VII as the best are mostly those who started with it and have only played VII onwards. It is no coincidence that those same people are the ones who mostly view this film as a masterpiece. Anyways, I actually fell asleep during my first viewing of the film. Subsequent views were subject to similar boredom though not quite on the same level. Nonetheless, it was still nothing more than a chore to finish (much like X, XII, and XIII). However, if you simply enjoy action and could care less about the story, then you may find enjoyment. However, beyond that, I cannot comprehend any enjoyment.

Overall:

I actually tried watching Advent Children as a film and nothing more, and even then it is still just as bland and tasteless. In reality any FF fan should feel the same. The contradictions speak for themselves. There is absolutely no justification for these contradictions, and nor will there ever be. The movie ruined a franchise which many of us hold dear. This movie, along with FF X, directly contribute to the downfall of the series and IMO is the official beginning of Final Fantasy's decline. It's no mystery that I have a severe hatred for this film, as well as the seemingly endless sequels that followed. If you read the entire review, you may also notice that I could care less for any game beyond IX. I personally blame Tetsuya Nomura, a simple monster designer, who now wields way too much power. It's hard to view this movie as nothing more than a pitiful attempt to cash in on greater things before it.