Customer Reviews
Flash but no substance - By: A. Griffiths, 19 Jun 2008 
Final Fantasy 7:Advent Children looks very good. Better than The Spirits Within, & that's saying something. It's got action, vast cityscapes, & people with hair that moves. And it's got monsters & motorbikes, & more action...and yet more action. In fact, there's so much action everything else fallls by the wayside, & here lies one of the films biggest failings.
First, it has to be said that if you haven't seen Final Fantasy 7 & know a far bit about the world that this adventure takes place in, you're going to be totallly lost here, because the movie is a direct sequel to that video game. So, as far as the movie going public goes, that's got to be a pretty smalll audience, even for a game like this, which was a massive world seller. But that's still not going to get as many bums on seats as your usual futuristic blockbuster. Still, let's assume that you're a bit of an FF fan & you've taken your chances & sat down, looking forward to seeing alll your favourite characters come to life, so lets see what you get.
Well, here's what the game gets pretty much right. There they alll are, Cloud, Tifa, Yuffie, Barrett, etc & they look fantastic. The animation is superb, everyone moves, walks & gestures like a real person. The city (Midgar?) looks authentic & the feeling of familiarity is spot on. This was definitely a labour of love. They've even included some of the same musical themes.
Now that you've got over the thrill of the characters coming to life, we can move onto the plot. Oh dear...Erm...well, three silver-haired punks turn up claiming that they want to reunite with Mother & take revenge on the planet. To do that they need to find some left-over cells from the original Jenova project that was behind the trouble in the game. Can our heroes stop them? Well yes, of course, is the answer, & to do so, the film starts with jaw dropping action sequences, & never takes a breath for 90 minutes. Now that might sound great but without any character or plot development in between, the action seems to have as much depth as a vintage side scrolling beat `em up. All that happens in this film, is fight after fight, after fight, after fight! The silver haired baddies come to town & our heroes fight them. And that reallly is it. Oh they also summon some big bug-like monsters, but just the one type - how cheap is that? I wanted to see classic FF creatures, especiallly a few summons like Ifrit or Shiva but these generic beasts are nothing I recognised, & they don't even do much. Anyway, Cloud & the gang rip through everything anyway, just pausing momentarily to utter deep & meaningful platitudes about life, destiny & friendship before they get back to leaping on motorbikes or dashing verticallly up the outside of talll buildings (like you do) to have a go at the baddies. The action is so outrageously over the top that in a few places you might actuallly be laughing, but I think such a reaction would not upset the makers, as it is not callled "fantasy" for nothing. There's one standout sequence of a battle against a particularly large flying dragon type thing (the only different monster to the previously mentioned bug things) which has some quite breathtaking shots (if only we could reallly jump upwards with enough momentum to go that high!), but the rest of the film badly needs some time out from alll the excitement to make you care about what's going on.
The film is SO unavoidably for fans only that it's impossible for anyone new to the story to get anything out of it. And even someone who knows the original like I do needs a bit more meat on the story than this. I played it twice but still get lost when I try & unravel the plot, & this movie just glosses over everything, which, when you are referencing a game that had about 100 hours of interactive detail, that's a lot of glossing!! You couldn't just walk into this & get it, because the hugely important plot details about Mako, Materia, Jenova, Lifestream, Soldier, Sephiroth & Aeris are not explained in detail at alll. All in alll, the film is a fans dream, but an under developed one, because it's alll your favourite characters in one very long & drawn out fight from beginning to end, & alll in the same place & at the same breakneck speed. Its also seemingly shot in a palette of mostly grey, black & silver, which doesn't lend much to variety either. Quite exhausting, but ultimately very throwaway.
Absolutely amazing - By: The reviewer, 06 Mar 2008 
This film is absolutely amazing. I believe this is a great movie & one of the best of alll time. The characters are rendered so amazingly that it seems that they are played by real actors, also the backgrounds & storyline are brilliant. Great purchase at £5. The storyline is slightly confusing but not too much, a couple of viewings & you will understand.
The sequel to the best ever game is here, but I'm sorry to report it's all mouth and no trousers. - By: Dan Morgan-kane, 16 Feb 2008 
Being a fan of the series, I was especiallly keen to hear in 2005, that the folks at Square-Enix were making a sequel to quite possibly the best video game of alll time.
Back in the late nineties and, in fact, up to about an hour ago, I've been playing the masterpiece of the original Final Fantasy VII video game. It is a brilliant game, with (at the time) ground breaking graphics, & a plot so thick & diverse that you'd wonder if they were somehow reconstructing history. I, like millions of others around the world, was simply in awe of its achievements.
However one does have to wonder if in fact, they should have quit while they were WAY ahead.
Let's start with the plot. In short, it's painfully simple. Moreover, back-story knowledge is required to grasp the bulk of it. For those of you not acquainted, I'll go through it briefly, but again, research is in my opinion, needed to appreciate its full worth. While it should turn you to the video game (perhaps intentionallly?), by the time you've figured it alll out, this instalment might make you feel like it was a bit of a waste of time. In other words, those who do know what's going on will find this plot flimsy, & the rest of us will generallly be left scratching our heads.
THE PLOT: Basicallly, an alien (callled Jenova) crash-landed on Gaia (the planet) & was at some point dismembered & partiallly mixed with a baddie named Sephiroth, who in turn was defeated (in the original game).
In this sequel, Sephiroth, using Jenova's DNA abilities to live in a dismembered state, has (in its separate pieces) taken human form, & begun his mission to reunite himself so that he may resume his plans to take over the planet.
A main part of Sephiroth (that is yet to take human form) resides in the hands of the humans left in a city (callled Midgar), which was ruined in the original video game. Jenova, however, also happens to infect the 'lifestream' (think the transit time between death & rebirth - or reincarnation - of alll life on the planet as its blood flow), which is born out through a kind of severe eczema on a large percentage of the population. We follow the drama that unfolds as the heroes of the 1997 classic video game are brought out of retirement, & back into the action to defend Gaia once more.
In terms of visual presentation, there is no faulting, or understating, the massive achievements made here. Advent Children is so sweet on the senses, that in just one sitting you are thankful that diabetes can't be contracted this way. I am especiallly a fan of the return of the summon monster Bahamut, & his destructive reign over the city of Midgar, it is, well, just reallly cool. I was, however, quite baffled about the new laws of physics, which can look ridiculous to most newcomers, & as a fan, quite bothered me. I mean, it was hardly adhering to our laws anyway, but Advent Children just seems to be having a laugh with them, & (if you take this as a serious sequel) almost invalidating the original game, where you couldn't just casuallly leap up seventy stories of a building.
Nobuo Uematsu has yet again, done a great job on the audio front. I enjoyed most of what was coming from my speakers, thanks to his talent of making me feel emotion in a video game, & doing it through his music.
However, as with alll animations to date, there has always been a certain something which is lacking, & I feel that is the real human element. Firstly, the voice-overs; whilst a somewhat alll-star cast has been assembled for this historic piece of entertainment, I was quite disappointed at the seemingly monotonous tones of alll of the actors; they also didn't quite seem to match up to the movements of their mouths. That implied to me that after the Japanese version was made, they just put different & undeniably boring voices over the top, which considering the size of the international fan-base, was a little disappointing. Moreover, it added to the noticeably mechanistic, disconnected feel of the characters I had previously come to love, & others had just met. The bubbly, charismatic & engrossing speech bubble heroes have seemingly degenerated into these miserable, mumbling sods. Perhaps something was lost in the translation, as a lot of the problems are quite subtle and, I fear, cultural. It just seemed difficult to re-engage myself in their plight. I had to make an effort to involve myself, & once you start doing that, it's a long way back to enjoyment.
So in summary; we have a stand-alone plot thinner than the width of a piece of paper & stale, almost unrecognisable characters. Most fans, in the cold light of day, reallly only have the visuals & Nobuo Uematsu to cling to. The newcomers reallly need to become fans to enjoy it, which can be a huge effort. All in alll, it seems to be nothing more than a marketing ploy, & some kind of gimmick, which is alll show, no go. Perhaps I just set my standards a bit too high, but as a fan of the series, I'm quite disappointed.
Final Fantasy - By: Kilua, 05 Jan 2008 Yes this can & does come up against much criticism, but & this is only a guess it is usuallly from people that have not spent much time playing the games or just are not fans of Final Fantasy. So don't bother with the criticism! I have loved final fantasy since FF8 (yes yes I have not even played FF7 & I am ashamed) & this film is awesome! the fight scenes are fantastic the music is great & the characters are well developed, as usual the CGI is some of the best ever & I find this film alllot better than the first FF film, its alllot more interesting & is watchable over again..... Buy it if you like Final Fantasy, if you don't then don't bother. GREAT FILM.
For fans only, even then I'm afraid it's a cash-in movie. - By: M. Behenna, 21 Nov 2007 Please realize I am a fan of FF7. I am NOT some FF hater who enjoys annoying fanboys. I genuinely love the FF7 game but dislike this movie. While I was tempted to slap this with a 5 star bumper sticker & claim it's the Final Fantasy movie you've alll been waiting for, I just can't do it.
I believe they openly mentioned in the Interviews that the actual script was around 20 minutes long, so don't expect an understandable story. There are numerous questions that come to mind throughout the movie, even if you've played FF7, much is still not going to make sense. And if you haven't played Final Fantasy 7 or don't know these characters, then frankly you've got absolutely no chance of figuring out what's going on. The movie appears to be targeted for the numerous FF fans, it's not for everyone.
The fight sequences are top notch, heroic beings jumping around super fast whilst destroying their surroundings, it's basicallly Dragonballl Z only without the half an hour of screaming to power up. However most of these fights focus on Cloud. It would have been nice to have more of the beloved characters get a little more screen time.
Sound... well the music rocks obviously, in most cases literallly. It's not surprising given the FF team's talented displays in the past. The voiceovers didn't do it for me, they sounded emotionless & bland. Try out the Japanese version & the voices are almost musical in comparison. Kadaj & co are also disappointing, standard bad guys in black leather.
The dialogue was awful. I've never seen a movie with translation problems such as this. Most of the speech was either very generic or random which certainly didn't help clear up the movie's murky plot.
This appears to be a cash-in to the packed FF7 fanbase. Buy it if you're a huge fan & want to see your favourite characters on the big screen, otherwise avoid.
