Now before I begin, I know that this is NOT necessarily related to the Xbox 360, however, as gamers, I'm sure that at least some of you are interested in this movie. And while it may not be true 360 news, you can definitely watch it through your beautiful Xbox 360 in 480p.

Advent Children is truly a gorgeous film in it's visual presentation, however, overall, I was disappointed. Through an auditory standpoint, it's not that great. The music is spectacular, but the volume of everything cuts in and out at weird times during the film. At first I thought that it was my speakers and wonky wiring or something, but watching a different DVD afterwards cleared that confusion right up for me. I'm pretty positive that the sound was done in the way that it was to emphasize certain elements of the film, but sometimes, it just doesn't seem quite right. I don't know what took so long to get this film over here from Japan. I thought that they were going to reanimate the lips and mouths of the characters to match the English actors/actresses, but they didn't, and while that's a minor detail, it can be distracting. I will give the English voice over actors credit though, for it's a decent dub.

The bonus disc that you get if you preordered the disc through EB or Gamestop (and got "lucky" enough to get there before all 3 were given away) is a total and complete waste of time and space. All that it is, is the American voice over actors giving their thoughts and feelings about the characters and working on the film, and what an honor it was. It's extremely obvious that these people have no idea who these original characters were to begin with. They also seem to ooze this pompous attitude from their pores, expressing the "fact" that it is great that players of the game will now be able to put voices with their favorite characters. In fact, one of them even says that he/she hopes that he/she is kept on the project for the future.

What future? Where is this going? Isn't this the end of the story, along with the crop of new Final Fantasy VII themed games coming out in the near future? I watched the Japanese making of featurette, as well. At least the people there KNEW about the characters, and who they really were, as people (They created the characters for both the game and movie). It was so much more insightful than the American featurette, that it was disgraceful.

Final Fantasy VII was a great story nine years ago, and it still is today. Carrying that story on into a sequel, in a different media, no less, is a complete gamble. In some ways, it paid off. In others, it was disappointing. Perhaps if American audiences got the 30 minute anime depicting what happened between the end of the game and the following two years before the start of the movie, it could have been better.

But, as a player of the original, I don't think the movie was all that hard to follow. I do, however, think that it should have been longer, and had a more expansive story. Think about it. How much time did you spend going through Final Fantasy VII's story? Personally I don't remember how long the game was, but I'm willing to take a guess that it was around 30-40 hours. Even with switching to film as your media, you cannot have a decent sequel going from that to 90 minutes. It's impossible. Perhaps, if they would have made Advent Children a miniseries, instead of a 90 minute film, it would have been better, but as it stands, it just seems to cut and dry, and to the point for me. Final Fantasy VII was always very spiritual and seemed to let you intrepret things for yourself. This film just stems to far away from that, and that, I believe, is part of what gave the original some of it's mysticism and magic.


Jmann2k1