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So, I totally "bought" (in exchange for bandwidth >_> ) Advent Children today. It was okay. Visually speaking it was pretty damn astounding, not just the graphics but the camera work and designs. Easily, the best reason to watch this movie is because of that.
Story wise, it's on par with Japanese films. IE, it sucked tremediously. Aparently, people are infected with Jenova's cells? Or maybe Sephiroths...I dunno. Anyways, bad things are going down, and some punk-a** bishies want to blow s**t up. Send in Cloud! He and gang stop bishies. Yaaaay.
Well, I dunno. It was nice to see the old team again. I loved the redone and redefined charactor designs, Cloud was pretty badass, even for a whiner. The charactors moved with a life-like flow, a grace I haven't seen before in animation. It was easy as hell to forget that they weren't real. (I don't even want to think about how long it took to render this film) For all it's pluses with the charactors, the battle with the summoned thing felt forced, an excuse to have a hero montage. Hell, the summon itself looked like the Dr. Moroed version of the FFX Aeons. Shin-ra and the Turks felt entirly misrepresented to me; they were more comic relief then a driving force to the story line.
The battle scenes were amazing. Perhaps overly Matrix-y, but quite well done, for the most part. Cloud's modular sword was a very spiffy trick, and I have a strange desire to try to marry Tifa. The fights were starting to lose me by the end, though, partly because I've been watching non-stop combat for most of the past half-hour, and because the film was asking me to believe to much. The way the final battle just kinda..stopped... was weird. Like pro wrestling, no matter how a**-handed someone is, they always get back up and fight like they just took a weeks vacation. *shrug*
The entire thing makes more sense if you've played FFVII (or, aparently, read several books on Biblical histories and lore). It still makes no damn sense, but at least you're get the referances and homages.
ADDED: It occured to me that some of the shot angle and framing isn't essentjally new; it's been done before in anime lord knows how many times. How ever, I think this is the first time it's been done RIGHT. Classic two dimensional animation is so rediculiously obsolete these days, not just the technological application, but in resolution and framerate. I can hardly stand to watch most of it.
MORE: I just realized something. Cloud is named, so is Tifa, Yuffie, Vincent and Barret. The other three? Not so much. If you hadn't played the game you would have no clue who Cid, Red XIII and Cait Sith were. I suposed that's okay, as they have 0 role to play in the story (********. I liked Cid and Red XIII), and even the bad guys didn't really have names, except for the chin-length dude.
Over all, Avdent Children was extremly well done, but highly misguided. I give it 3.6 / 5 Motorcycles.