Advent Children is a thrilling ride filled with action, drama and fan service. Is that a bad thing? Not at all.
Advent Children takes place two years after the events of Final Fantasy VII. During the story of the original game, Cloud Strife and a gang of colorful characters stopped a powerful warrior named Sephiroth from obliterating the planet. Despite their victory, the planet was left a scarred mess. Although the planet began to pick up the pieces, a disease called Geostigma arose, infecting the planet's populace. To make things even worse, a trio of new enemies has arisen, forcing Cloud and his old friends to fight for the planet once more.
Unfortunately, the plot is a bit weak in some areas. The fact that this plot is very hard to understand without extensive knowledge of the series can turn off some people to this movie. Although it's not bad, it seems like it was designed to move you from fight to fight with some talk about something or another. Many important characters such as Yuffie Kisaragi and Cait Sith barely make appearances at all, leaving them as fan service that doesn't service the fans enough. It seems like Square has a bit of trouble making plots that don't take about 50 hours to complete.
Although the story is a bit lacking, it's made better and more enjoyable by the incredible realisitic feel to the characters as well the world around them and the awesome fight sequences (which you won't mind getting to at all).
Seriously, you could take one good look at a scene in the movie and accidentally mistake it for a live action one. Each character are so detailed that you can make out each individual hair on a person's head (you'll be shocked at just how incredible Red XIII looks). You'll also notice that there is just as much detail in the scenery and objects occupying the movie. When you the scene cuts to a city, you can see everything with such incredible detail that you can almost smell the pollution.
The action sequences, a major highlight of the movie, take things to the next level. It's at this point that the developers throw realism out the door, in lieu of unbelievable fights that will have you gaping at the mouth. Pariticular eye poppers are the intense group fight against a gigantic monster (fans of Final Fantasy will recognize it easily) and the over the top final battle (which reintroduces one of the greatest villains in video gaming history) . After this movie, you'll find yourself wishing that all fights could be like what you just saw, leaving you to curse at the laws of physics
Of course, no movie can be truly good without good sound and music. This movie is no exception.
I'm sure a lot of fans expect voice acting for such a high profile title to be excellent. Well, rest assured, the voice acting is incredible. Each character has a voice that suits him or her perfectly, even giving several characters distinctive accents. Notable mentions are the talents of Steven Burton as Cloud Strife, George Newbern as Sephiroth (go ahead fanboys, shout with glee; Sephiroth is in this movie) and Steve Blum as Vincent Valentine. For those of you that played Kingdom Hearts 2, you'll be glad to know that Mena Suvari does a MUCH better job as Aerith. Still, there are a few lines here of there that don't quite come up to par. The lip synching, although overall good, can sometimes look so horrible that a good piece of dialogue feels completely uncomfortable.
The music in this game also comes up to meet the high standards that Final Fantasy set up in the past. The music always seems to fit the mood perfectly, transitioning from a soft piano piece during an intimate moment to a high intensity number that'll get your adrenaline pumping in a fast paced cut scene. You'll also be happy to know that One Winged Angel (Sephiroth's bad ass theme) makes a return, albeit with a modern twist. Interestingly, the music within the actual movie seem much better than the actual theme song. It just doesn't seem that memorable (you can disregard this, seeing as its only my opinion of good music).
The main attraction may be the movie but a good theme park needs some smaller attractions to add a bit of fun. If you don't get the analogy, it means DVD extras. You'll get a documentary or two about the Final Fantasy VII name and a making of the movie. Along with that, we get a bit of footage from the Venice Film Festival, game footage, trailers and a few deleted scenes. Sadly, it's not that much. It won't occupy you too long (the deleted scenes could really just be considered a few cut seconds of an already existing scene) and it feels very lackluster.
All in all, you can see just how much effort was put into the making of this movie. At heart, it's a high intensity roller coaster that'll have you reeling once the credits roll by. There may be some glaring flaws but it's still a whole bunch of steps up from the terrible Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. It's a worthy part of the collection of Final Fantasy VII media and a good sign that Square isn't terrible at movies. Definitely worth the wait and delays.
Note: Gameplay represents the score for the plot. Difficulty and learning curve should be disregarded.