Awesome Movie

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

First off, I'd like to mention I haven't seen the Complete version yet. I won't deny that this movie is pretty awful; mediocre at best. The story is as meh as they come, and none of the characters are interesting at all (except maybe Sephiroth). So why do I like this movie? Because it is positively dripping with style and pizazz. I love watching the flashy, over-the-top fight scenes; especially the one between Cloud and Sephiroth. This movie looks and sounds awesome, and despite the horrid plot, I still get a kick seeing the action.

I watched this as a non-FFVII player (yes, I'm outside of the target audience but a movie's a movie right?) I have always admired the Final Fantasy series from afar... even though I've never played the games, I've always admired the artwork, the animation and the music... (My personal favourite is FFX - Lulu is absolutely stunning, my favourite character!) The first time I watched it, the storyline was confusing as someone who had never played the games, so I needed some background before watching. The action is exciting, but can be a little drawn out and long (I watched the "complete" version of the film, so maybe that's why they were long). Nonethless, for a movie produced 10 years ago, the animation is absolutely stunning and gorgeous. The characters really come to life - hair texture and especially eyes are well done. The storyline is beautiful, but if you are going into this having not played the game, you might need to do some background reading before-hand.

I am being generous giving this abomination a 2. It's getting 2 because the characters were portrayed more or less like in the game (which was, for the most part, a well written fiction), and the graphics were nice.Everything else about this film is wrong. Like with reviewing all terrible things, it's hard to know where to begin.1. Localization is BAD. Let's start with my title: "Dilly Dally, Shilly Shally". This is a symptom of a terrible localization. You'd think that after the original game's problematic localization that at least THIS would be up to scratch... but no. I won't waste your time telling you what the Japanese was meant to convey—just Google it and find out. The nonsensical phrase above indicates the localization team was either on drugs or mentally deficient. The whole localization is poor. It's actually a slight improvement to watch this film in Japanese with English subs. I say 'slight' because that won't fix the crap script, plot, pacing, or anything else, sadly.2. The plot makes absolutely no sense. Part of the reason is that Final Fantasy VII is a massive game with a huge story and, any sequel, even if well scripted, would likely need to be three hours long to tell a coherent tale. No effort was attempted. I watched the "Complete" version of this film and timed the amount of scenes dedicated to meaningless, out of control, and totally implausible battle sequences— it came to around 1/3 of the film. When you see things like this, you should instantly be aware that the writers are compensating for a lack-luster story. In this case, they are also appealing to FF7 fanboys, who will buy anything Final Fantasy as long as it has cool graphics. Square Enix has churned out a lot of Sequel-Prequel cash-ins since 1997. And fans just keep on biting.3. The pacing is dire. The film is so busy trying to disguise its short-comings with battle sequences that it forgets to tell a story or have a proper narrative. No sooner are your characters in a setting where some meaningful dialogue can take place than something happens to thrust you into another coma inducing battle sequence.4. The film is written like it is a game. Sigh... The genres are completely different, but some morons at Square Enix (including some of the original staff) thought that it would be a good idea to use game elements in a film. As a result, physics, gravity, logic, and reason are thrown out of the window. Characters are smashed into walls at 100 mph without a scratch... Look, I'm getting fed up with this review already. Just like the film, it's boring me. Needless to say, if you are intelligent enough to understand why believability matters to a fiction, you are too intelligent to watch this insulting film. In the game, battle elements are often treated as non-story elements because that's desirable—a player uses logic to decide how to interpret the battle in the wider scheme of things. The story in the game maintained the suspension of disbelief and didn't go too far, too often. This pile of rubbish doesn't care. Unfortunately, I have had the misfortune of debating this issue on a fan forum, and the overwhelming majority agreed that logic doesn't matter and that any and all things that happen in a story are acceptable. Little wonder, then, that these same people praise and defend this garbage.5. Apart from Cloud (who is now an emo), the characters were well designed and acted like their game counterparts. Unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. The game versions had proper motivations and lengthy conversations. This film just wants to get you to the next battle sequence. It doesn't help that the fanboy servicing required numerous retcons (like dead characters returning - itself a sign of lazy, crap writing) to take place, and for every established former character to make an appearance, no matter the justification.I am one of the biggest FF7 fans. I have recently finished a complete relocalization for the original game, found here: http://goo.gl/QBrX7B. But unlike some fans, I am not deluded by fanboyism. I know the short comings of the game and of this movie (if you can call it that). This film was made for the sole purpose of exploiting mindless fanboys - to make a quick buck. And on that front, it worked. If you aren't familiar with the game, I dread to think how much worse this film will be for you.This film is an ABSOLUTE example of what NOT TO DO.

This surprisingly isn't as bad as most shows based on games are. Normally they base it on people who have actually seen the game and not on new people just coming in. I have never really played the game but I have watched play throughs and know a basic about the story of the game. This movie explains a bit more about the storyline and seems to pick up after the game or at least some years after. Sadly, most of it is very cryptic and through the eyes of a child rather then an adult who might have actually understood what was going on during that time. With my basic knowledge, it was a bit hard to understand. It jumps from the past to the present in a very large leap that I guess was trying to give you information but it was much more confusing then it should be. That and the forced romance between Cloud and Tifa seemed to throw me off. It felt really disjointed the way that they brought it about. I can understand the cuteness of Cloud but the way Tifa acts to it, it feels as though they had some sort of romance of the sexual kind and are now just having awkward conversations after. It was like that through the movie whenever they did meet.I have to say, there are some comedic faces in the show such as Reno who always seems to get into trouble and say the wrong things. There are also times when, for instance, a fight is over, and they use the winning song from the game as a cell phone ringing in the background. Just clever little things that tie more of the game into the show. It's kind of funny and somewhat cute. Sadly though, it was like they were forcing all the characters from the game and maybe even some from past games into the movie, trying to show every last one of them so we have a lot of jump clips to characters who don't feel like they have part of the story till later.The Graphics are actually pretty stunning, matching some of the newer Final Fantasy games. Sadly, some of the action isn't as good, the characters moving slightly stiff. The camera always seems to give these really strange angles though out the whole fight animation, making it hard to understand just what's going on along with a lot of slow motion to fast motion that made things even harder to understand. It was disjointed against the slow movement of the rest of the film. Still, from the time it came out, this was an amazing looking film. All the steam punk style art and cool details make it a rather extraordinary film.The voices are actually quite good for a dubbing, though sadly a lot of the time I can see that the voice actors struggled to match the lip sinking. Also, what the hell does 'Dillie Dallie Shilly Shally' mean? Sorry if I spelled that wrong but I mean… there had to be something better placed there. Tifa doesn't say this once… she says it two times! Like saying it again would make it any more clear! I bet that the Japanese version doesn't have that! As for the music, it's really beautiful and fits well into where it should be but next to the voice acting, this movie does not shine as much as it should.