Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Well, despite the release date not being until 7 hours from now [or so says the Official Site], circumstances have allowed me to witness this cinematic embodyment of a landmark RPG; the one Final Fantasy VII.

[For reference I've just realised that my CD for the FFVII:Reunion Tracks was lost with my CD Binder at the start of the summer, so I only have the CD Case for the Reunion Tracks now. My opinion may be affected as I grieve for my loss.]



First and foremost, I was not expecting anything amazing with this film. What I did expect was some flash fight scenes, some moderate eye candy, and some heavy camios by all my favorite FFVII characters. What I did not expect was a beautiful performance, convincing acting, and an explanation that might help me understand the FFVII world just a little bit more. This much was apparent from the multitued of trailers they released almost feverishly.

Introductions

You're entered into a world with little explanation. Cloud and Tifa seem to run a delivery service and room with several children [although I never saw more than Marlene and Denvel in their home. Were we to assume that the numerous children outside also lived with Cloud and Tifa? Is that the reason why Cloud was going to rescue all the 'children' and not just the two who's names we knew?]. The population seems to be plagued with Geostigma, although.. I don't quite know how they all got it. I'll leave the technicalities and mind fucking alone for this ride. In short, I suggest you read the back of the DVD box before watching the film. You might learn more about what's going on there then from the film itself.

In short, nothing seems to be explained. Nothing from 'Why is Cloud in the middle of the wasteland?' to 'How did Rufus survive from that direct assulat on Midgar?', albeit it seemed like Rufus attempted to explain. Cloud just didn't care. Obviously he wasn't thinking about the rest of us. But the lack of clarity without some thought is a tradition within the FFVII kingdom, so utter clarency would have been unforgivable.

Story

I think there were a lot of holes in this story. Too many questions, even for the Seventh, seemed to arise. The storytelling also assisted in creating confusion. Cuts, cross overs into different scenes without lead in or rhythm.. It had little flow to it, and that broke the continuity of the film. When you're watching something and find yourself going "Mmm.. Commercial Break here.", then that's usually not a good sign. Firstly, you haven't been pulled into the film so it's failed in it's storytelling and ability to capture you, and secondly you've noticed such a large break in the flow of the film that you can make a mental note of it and even suggest which commercials should be played during that time.

Acting

Finally something I can have a real say in. The Acting, or perhaps more so, the Performance was seriously lacking in this film. There's a difference between animation and live-action. What you can do in live-action you should not do in animation. It's a rule of thumb. Obviously a normal live-action actor wouldn't be able to jump of buildings or engage in gravity defying battles, but they can talk realistically, and they can move realistically.. which is more than I can say for Cloud and his entourage of modeled humans. In my humble opinion, the acting in FFVII:AC was no better than the acting and movement in FF:The Spirits Within-- with the exception of the elbows. They got the elbows right in AC.

Unfortunately, whenever a full-body shot, or interactive pose of the body with the environment was required within a decent amount of time.. the acting attempts at immitating the human body could be noticed. One specific scene I'd like to note for this:

In Cloud's battle with Sephiroth as they engage in close range battle, swords flying off of one another, their movements are quick, fast-paced and flowing. I found myself completely caught up in the scene-- that is until.. Until they pulled back on Sephiroth and for one brief moment I could see the majority of his body, and his step-landing on the ruins of Shinra Corp. In that moment the entirety of his centre of gravity, his movements, and the flow of his body were off and revealed; the scene was lost.

Secondly, apart from the main body, the facial expressions were.. painful. It wasn't that they were soft, it was that they were too small to even be there. The most noteable expression in this entire film was Reno. I felt his character had a fabulous feeling around him, not only in the expression of his voice, but also in that they followed the exagerration of his sound track to fit the physical exagerration of his expressions, and especially his lipsync. The human mouth my only open up so much when talking, but when acting you never want it to be exactly the same as a real human. It's not what the audience expects. You may be -trying- to imitate real life, but we don't think of such small lipmovements to be "normal" albeit they very well be. We expect pronounciation, exagerration [although maybe not to such a blaring degree as say Don Bluth films have] such that the words they say are noticeable and plausibly delivered. The only type of person that may say otherwise would perhaps be those who are hearing impaired and take greater note of the lip movements than those without such an impairment.

Style

I found it interesting that they used a lot of the original game quality styled effects. The Life Stream, as a primary example. The energy bursts from the reactors at Midgar, and even the dull glow of the materia [since when did a green materia take the place of a red summoning materia, I'll never know]. They also kept certain things much like the original concept like the shell design in "Ajit", however I personally feel they shouldn't have. If you're going as far as to turn a blocky polygon such as Cloud into a well defined model with indidivdual hair strands, then I think you can puch the shell design, and even the water effects to a greater degree of "realism" or a style more suited towards the film instead of pulling the original style for the effects and pushing them together with the technology of the day.

Not only within the effects the surrounding and the effects.. but also the models themselves. Again they pulled from the original and pushed it with the technology of today. Obvious examples are the clearly defined "chunks" of sephiroth's hair going down his back. Just because you may be using the original footage as your storyboard doesn't mean you have to follow it exactly. I personally feel that a more naturalistic hair flow for Sephiroth's 'fire scene' would have been bettered suited than keeping his hair chunks. You aren't trying to copy the original.. you're trying to accomplish what the original -wanted- to do, but couldn't because of the technology at the time.

Overall

With the choppy storyboarding, the poor flow of the scenes from one to another, even the compsition within each scene I felt could have been done better. Rarely did I find myself thinking 'What a fabulous shot composition.' where as I found myself finding faults with the composition almost continually. I found that there was a reuse a various scene 'angles' but just from a different extreme still within the conal line of vision. This left me wondering why they even bothered cutting from one scene to another. It wasn't necessary, so why do it? Don't.

Sadly, as much as I love the soundtrack from the Original FFVII game, the soundtrack used in AC was by far too noticeable. Instead of supporting the scene, supporting the emotion and feel of that scene the music instead merely made itself known that it was there. "Oh~! Look at me! I'm the racey music for battle chases and am based on the original verion called --------". The timing for the music also seemed somewhat off. As if it came in too late in various instances, which only made its arrival on the scene even more noticeable.

And on a personal note: The monster movement, and even the movement of RedXIII himself was.. disappointing. I'm curious if they even decided to define a type of animal to their monsters. Red should have been fairly obvious. Depending on what cat type you want you could go for a Tiger, a Panther or even a Cheetah, but instead Red's movement seemed mechanical and repetitive. My particular qualms lie on the torso and the progression of the forearms as they pulled forward to hit the ground the push back to propel themselves forward. It was as if there was a stick in the model, keeping the two shoulders a specific distance from each other. The body, our body, any body, is more flexible than that.

--

In the end, I got what I was expecting, if not a little less. The storyboarding and flow of the film was a disappointment I wasn't expecting, and a less noticeable soundtrack to emphasis the telling of the story. On a more hopefuly note, my expectation for FFVII: Last Order are much higher, not only in acting but in a solid, progressive story as well. The limitations of the 3D world can easily be surpassed in a medium with few to no boundaries by simply tricking the eye.

If you're a FFVII fan, then by all means this is a must see.. but I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't familiar with at least the story and the characters. Otherwise.. it's just another Spirits Within with even less explanation. And fixed elbows.