To me, this movie is perfection.

Better Late Then Never

Absolutely Fantastic

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

To the jaded film goer with no interest in playing a masterpiece story of the video game world, this film is probably worthless, confusing, and a waste of time. But for the wide eyed, imaginative, and profoundly curious, this movie is an adventure ripe with mystery and emotion.It begins with a fantastic and intriguing world enduring the aftermath of some world altering cosmic event only vaguely addressed in an opening monologue, delivered to uniquely beautiful music and iconic imagery that makes it clear what exactly such a horrible trend of opening monologues in cheap anime and terrible B-movies were going for, and it's pretty awesome to see it done right. And that's a great picture of the film-making throughout: It's beautiful, enticing, and ethereal. On sight and sound alone, this film is utterly astounding; but on a story front, it can be either or.For someone who has no idea about the events of the game, the opening is played masterfully as a mystery; and for those who know the game's events it serves as a charming callback. For some outside the know, this is an infuriating tease, especially in an age where information is a prized as it is. We live in an age where people feel entitled to know the answers to mysteries that, while often held up in nostalgic memory, are ultimately cast down as lazy writing and incoherent story-telling if not answered within the context of their own story. But for the rest of us, this serves as a hook - teasing us to find out what happened, letting us know there's more to be known. The coherent framing makes for apparent yet unclear meaning to everything we're shown.For me, seeing this movie was the beginning of a journey that would end where it began. It's like the first episode of a long running series that ends up being the last episode in the chronology. It's vague allusions become deeper meanings and satisfying conclusions to character arcs as you emerge from the other side to watch again; wholly engrossed as you were the first time, if not all the more so.After playing the game, this movie goes from a solid 7 to a sterling 10. Watching this movie with the game as context makes for an emotionally touching close to a fantastically inspiring story. Without that context, action sets are just spectacle, rather than the giant allegorical externalized inner demon wrestling they become with the full context. With it, mysteriously gripping scenes become a continuation of something sorely lacking at the end of the game... closure with the characters - a happily ever after.It's not the most accessible movie, but it is very much so as a gateway to a larger world. You can't watch this movie and just be done with it. You can easily enjoy this movie without the game if you have the imagination, but the intent of the movie is to get you to play the game and then come back and enjoy the feature as the masterpiece it is. It's difficult to feel satisfied after watching it when there's so much more behind it and through it that you aren't seeing.Recommended for people who are interested in playing the game. It will be a film that makes you feel tons of wonderful and difficult things. It's a great movie and a great marketing tool for the game, at least from a narrative setting standpoint. It's pretty impressive, if you aren't a cynical critic who judges everything they see on a first viewing basis.

If you want to see a movie with exceptional over-the-top, beautifully crafted computer animated characters and gravity defying fight scenes: FFVII: Advent Children is it!! The plot could have been explained a bit more thoroughly throughout the movie, but it does deliver the basics, which is enough to get an idea of the main idea. Questionably, the movie wanted us to believe that the 3 male villains are "young and violent," as described by Rufus Shinra speaking to Cloud, however, I thought the villains were very likeable and in some ways adorable. For example, Kadaj could have killed Reno and Rude when he broke in to speak to Mr. Shinra. Loz could have killed Tifa after he overpowered her. Yazoo and Loz could have hurt or even killed any of the children and Yazoo and Loz could have most likely killed Reno and Rude (using their gunblades) during their battle scene in Midgar. I'm NOT saying that I would have wanted any of those scenarios to actually happen, as I really liked all of the characters and I was glad no one was hurt. In another scene, during Kadaj's death, he is crying believing the voice he hears is "Mother" and that he finally found her. Oh yeah, such a badass villain there! But my point is, if you have villains, make them truly evil. In FFVII, the writers had the guts to kill off Areith by the villain Sephiroth. No matter how cool Sephiroth is, I despise him for this very reason. Overall, this movie is beautifully crafted, with loveable character (even the villains) and humorous at times. I hope at some point, these villains are brought back (hey, why not, it's anime after all) and used again for primary antagonist or even make them protagonist for another FFVII story. This movie is definitely worth seeing! For kids, watch the original FFVII: Advent Children. For older children/adults, watch the Complete version.

This movie directed by Tetsuya Nomura (the character designer/director of newer Final Fantasies) is not based on Final Fantsy VII, but a sequel. One of the first things you'll notice is how good it looks. It's 11 years old and still holds up very well. You can even see dust get reflected in sunlight and stuff like that. The movie is not very colorful, but that fits for the setting. Since it's a sequel to Final Fantasy VII the world is slowly building up again from an earlier chaos. When we talk about chaos. The fights are really fast and sometimes you'll almost not see what happens, but it looks really good with explosions, buildings falling apart and GIGANTIC monsters. Now let's talk about the story. You'll probably be very confused. Especially if you haven't played the game FFVII. It's about some kind of disease and something about Jenova's head and the "Reunion". and then an epic fight against Sephiroth. But seeing loved characters fight again is still very worth seeing. Tha music is partly new and partly new versions of old FFVII music. It usually fits very well. The voice acting is pretty good in English, but for some reason I haven't seen it in Japanese. But this film is still worth seeing since it looks incredibly well and let's you see your favorite FFVII characters back in awesome fights. This is my first review so my writing may not be very good. And YES I'm an "underaged little sh*t hanging around at the internet"

I can't say how much impressed I am to have seen this year's later. I was watching Spirits Within lately (if you wanna check out my review, head over to my IMDb page!) and I definitely agree that Advent Children is way better than Spirits Within! The reason was because, it very much is like the games even though I never experienced playing the games before. However what I like about this movie was it makes you definitely want to play the games if you have never heard of them before during your childhood. The details on the faces of the characters looked so real that I thought they were real life actors, not 3-D! I thought everything was great about the movie but the storyline was tricky to understand as I don't know most of the characters and haven't played the games so I was a little lost but that didn't stop me from watching the whole movie. I found it was very enjoyable and I loved the action involved, it pretty much is incredible!Very incredible film indeed!