I just finished watching Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, and . . . wow. It’s like a 90-minute-long cutscene, only in a good way. Square-Enix really outdid themselves with this one. Voice acting (so far as I could tell, since it’s in Japanese) was superb, the action scenes were amazing, and at one point what started running through my head was Belushi’s line from The Blues Brothers – “We’re getting the band back together!”
Even if you never played Final Fantasy VII, and shame on you for that, you should definitely check this movie out. Think “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within”, only way less crappy (and with 100% less Ben Affleck). I have no idea when it’ll be out in the States, but there’s always the Internet. Or a region-free DVD player; it’s definitely out in Japan. Only trick there is that I’m pretty sure it’s not subtitled in English on the Region 2 disc, and it’s definitely not dubbed. So if you don’t speak Japanese, the Internet is the way to go; fansubbers are even crazier than most people.
Correction: OK, so while I’ve been saying this for the last couple of days, IMDB has proven me wrong. Advent Children has 100% of the Ben Affleck that Spirits Within had (i.e., none at all), but it has 100% less Alec Baldwin (not sure if that’s a good thing or not).
