It's finally here and everybody's watching it, but is it any good? Square's latest attempt at making a good movie is a huge love letter to the fans of the game and the fans will certainly love it, but it disappoints greatly when it comes to the story and the characters. It's pure fanservice, but it's awesome.

Animation

This movie probably represents the peak of what Japanese animation has to offer today. I'm not going into every detail, just know that you won't see anything better than this until someone else decides to shell out a ton of yen like Square-Enix obviously did. Computer or not, the sheer amount of detail packed in every single frame is enough to make the development of a movie like this both long and costly.

I could say FF7-AC's animation has two modes. The first is used in the quiet scenes and tends to enhance the value of the beautiful 3D models of each character, their life-like movements and facial expressions.

The other is a very different style; during the fight scenes everything suddenly speeds up, the camera jerks around a lot and the characters run at insane speeds, fly and swing their swords in movements that can only be described as inhuman. Far from detracting anything from the overall beauty of this movie, this second mode is used very effectively to convey a strong sense of power and endurance and when one of the two sides is finally defeated, well, it's almost a shock because throughout the fight it usually seems nobody's ever going to give up. That's why the action scenes are so gripping, they really catch your attention and your eyes are bolted to the screen. Actually, the fight scenes are the only thing Square has put in the movie, so I guess we're lucky they're done so well.

Sound

Great. Great, great, great. The sound quality of the special effects is very high and all the shots fired and all the sword blows are so much more convincing thanks to the sounds that come with them.

The soundtrack - that was truly a wonder. The guys at Square took all the best themes of the most loved characters from the game and put them in the movie, but they didn't leave them as they were. Half of them were remade into different versions that improve on the original in every way. The rest is improved in different ways, e.g. the famous Sephiroth theme is now accompanied by a distorted guitar and beautiful guitar solos. Many themes have been remade as rock or orchestral + techno pieces. Every single one is beautiful.

One thing I must say however is that cramming all those very different tunes together in a movie actually hurt consistency - you can hear rock right after orchestral or the other way around and it feels a bit strange. However this small shortcoming is completely overshadowed by the sheer delight of hearing all those tunes you've listened to for 60+ hours while you played the game. I'm sure even someone who never heard them before will like them a lot.

Story

None.

Seriously, while there is a lame attempt at justifying the fight scenes with a straightforward and not very well fleshed out plot, you can see what Square's aim was set on - i.e. beautiful, stunning action sequences. I can't even summarize it without telling you 100% of it because it seems it's a summary itself. We have seen time and again that complex, interesting plots can be fit inside a ~1h30m timespan, e.g. think of Perfect Blue. This movie doesn't even attempt to give the audience something interesting to think about. The strong message that was in the game isn't conveyed at all here. The lifestream theory isn't expanded on or even repeated. Nothing interesting happens at all outside the fight scenes, no interesting events, no revelations, nothing, although the game has a lot of awesome material that could have been used in this movie.

The game had a huge, deserved success especially because of its unique heroes; the movie is an excuse to let us see our beloved heroes again and does that very successfully: every time one of them pops up you can't help but feel that particular hell yeah!!! feeling :)

It would be fine if the movie left it at that and simply showcased the characters fighting and having meaningless dialogs in places taken from the game and graphically upgraded. That would have been honest. However, the creators had to ruin it by trying to make the overly simple plot seem something deep and complex. Pretentiousness pervades the whole movie like someone cast bio on it. Be it an excercise in style or a desperate attempt to transform something that is basically a bunch of sweet, delicious fanservice in a real movie, that's a lame thing to do.

Characters

None.

Ok, ok, the movie has 3D models. That doesn't mean it has actual characters. You know, those guys that have thoughts, things to say, a personality. The only one that seems to be explored in a little more detail is Cloud, who supposedly lost his will to fight and finds it again for no reason, probably because the last fight against Sephiroth wouldn't have been as cool if he kept being beaten around like in the beginning of the movie.

He's feeling guilty because he let Aerith die and never quite recovered but Aerith herself helps him. It seems cool, but this only lasts for a short time and it's the only noteworthy thing that happens to a character in this movie. It fails completely at portraying Cloud as an interesting guy. Actually, I'd like to stop a bit on this and tell you just how uninteresting and boring Cloud is.

Cloud was never meant to be the hero who defeats everyone. Seriously. In the game he's a liar - remember the Soldier thing? - and once he's even incapacitated and reduced to a larvae on a wheelchair until Tifa rescues him from his mental breakdown.

The reason why Cloud sucks in this movie is that he had weaknesses as well as strenghts and a strong, well defined personality and you felt it even though he never said much; now he's a Bruce Willis-like mindless hero with just a hinting of personality and a passion for childish one-liners. Not Hollywood-style one-liners as in "go fuck yourself, man" or "I'll put my fist so far up your ass, your every thought will have to go through my wedding ring", but still one-liners. All of this things make him totally forgettable. It's even more maddening because you can see clearly that it's all a rushed attempt at putting something, anything around that big void to hide it from the audience. Same as the story, actually.

The other characters didn't recieve even half of the attention Cloud got. Even Tifa, the second most important character in this movie, doesn't really think or speak about anything and her role in the movie is to put all the burden on Cloud's shoulders and convince him to fight.

Once he manages to do it, with the help of Aerith's spirit, she holds back and lets Cloud do everything - like all the other characters do. Our heroes are all there, each one in his/her meaningless role. Let's talk a little about them.

They appear out of the blue riding on Cid's new plane-thing and believe me, it's a joy to see them all again. I never realized how much I loved them all until now. They all do things in their own very particular style: Barret runs around shooting things at random, Vincent shows us how cool his cloak is, Tifa punches and kicks like she did when the limit gauge was full (did I see the dolphin combo?), Cid still has those stupid goggles, Cait Sith now rides Red... Really, they all rock so much - graphically. But, again, under the surface there's nothing.

Of course, the cast is just too big for a movie. I know. But they could have made at least 2 or 3 interesting characters. Instead, well, nothing to see here, move along.

They're in the movie only to provide fanservice - no, fanservice isn't just tits & ass, it's also overly detailed mechas and other things that are only meant to please the fans - and they only have a small impact on the events taking place. In the end they just decide to hold back and let Cloud do all the spanking by himself, for no reason at all, even if they know he's going to face Sephiroth who in the last battle had to be brought down by SIX of them working in two teams (unless you managed to get the Knights of the Round materia and the Mime materia and... aaahhh the memories, the memories!).

All in all, their inclusion in the movie was very, very awkward and clumsy.

Since I almost fell from the chair cheering them as they appeared one after the other and my heart actually started beating faster during a certain sequence when they attack, one after the other, a huge beast (go Bahamut!!! :D) I raised the vote a little :)

Personal

The movie made time fly. The quiet moments should have been overly boring - they would have been in a live action movie - but the animation is so good you barely notice that nothing is really going on.

Overall

The movie is funny as hell and a must watch and you'll certainly watch it more than once to see again those amazing fights, although what will happen in the long run is that you'll get bored of the fight scenes too.

It doesn't matter.

Go for it. Watch it. You'll enjoy it a lot, despite all its shortcomings. I recommend this movie, strongly.