Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was recently released onto DVD (skipped the theatres) and being a huge fan of their games and music, I had to go watch it. The movie is set two years after the game Final Fantasy VII so playing the game would definitely help in understanding the movie. Actually thats probably the problem with the movie. Playing the game was critical to understanding the movie. In fact, I still don't quite understand the movie as I played the game many years ago. There is next to no character development and at one point of the movie, all these renowned hero characters from the game just show up. Maybe thats why it wasn't released in the theatre - its definitely targeted at the Final Fantasy game players. On IMDB, the movie has a rating of 8.5 which is very high by IMDB standards - clearly, the majority of the votes came from already converted fans. I give the movie a 5 for story and character development.
However, the movie did have some high points namely, the music and animation. As the music was composed by Nobuo, there were quite a few well known melodies. Even better was that much of the score were piano arrangements which I either have the music for or have played it. The animation of the movie was stunning and I would suggest watching it just for the animation alone. There's so much detail that sometimes you can't even tell if you're looking at an animation or real life object. Definitely rival Hollywood's best. Its too bad it wasn't released in theatre as it really is an animation feat.
But all in all, after two hours I'm not quite sure what happened in the movie - meaning, its probably not worth your time.
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movie final fantasy VII FF7 Final Fantasy Advent Children