(For fans of FFVII, you might as well ignore my comments, because you'll want to see AC anyway, and nothing I say should stop you.)
It's been 8 years since the release of the landmark game that has since made FF a household name. Since then FFVII has garnered a legion of fans far outnumbering those of us who were fans pre-FFVII. Square-Enix has finally given those fans what they've been asking for, but was it worth the wait? If you're looking for eye-candy, then look no further. AC is abound with vast amounts of it. So much, in fact, that it becomes one of its greatest detriments. The problem is that Square-Enix overuses the CG and attempts to bring everything to life, so much so that you find yourself looking at the details instead of the whole picture.
The biggest problem with this lies in the voice acting and facial expressions. Square-Enix has come a long way since the original CG in FFVII, but they still have a long way to go with merging CG with recorded voice acting. The voice acting is good, but it doesn't sync perfectly with the emotion of the visuals, so it gives the characters a hollow feel. Words come out of the characters, but they don't seem to come FROM the characters, and so it becomes very distracting.
In addition to that, many of the characters' movements seem unnatural and puppet-like, most notably the children. It seems like great care was taken to animate Cloud, but they just signed off on minor characters to people who didn't have enough time to do it properly, so you get a totally uneven feel.
The other big problem is with direction. Directing a game is different than directing a feature. In games, you need to fill almost all silence with ambient music to keep the player from getting bored. Scenes without music tend to heighten the tone. In features, too much music will drown out any tone set by the characters. Unfortunately, AC was directed from a gaming perspective, so the whole thing is almost completely saturated with music.
In all, AC is an interesting piece of work. Despite feeling let down by the production, I was still entertained. I just can't help but feel that with a movie director and more advances in technology, they could've made something more that wasn't just for the die-hard fans.
It's been 8 years since the release of the landmark game that has since made FF a household name. Since then FFVII has garnered a legion of fans far outnumbering those of us who were fans pre-FFVII. Square-Enix has finally given those fans what they've been asking for, but was it worth the wait? If you're looking for eye-candy, then look no further. AC is abound with vast amounts of it. So much, in fact, that it becomes one of its greatest detriments. The problem is that Square-Enix overuses the CG and attempts to bring everything to life, so much so that you find yourself looking at the details instead of the whole picture.
The biggest problem with this lies in the voice acting and facial expressions. Square-Enix has come a long way since the original CG in FFVII, but they still have a long way to go with merging CG with recorded voice acting. The voice acting is good, but it doesn't sync perfectly with the emotion of the visuals, so it gives the characters a hollow feel. Words come out of the characters, but they don't seem to come FROM the characters, and so it becomes very distracting.
In addition to that, many of the characters' movements seem unnatural and puppet-like, most notably the children. It seems like great care was taken to animate Cloud, but they just signed off on minor characters to people who didn't have enough time to do it properly, so you get a totally uneven feel.
The other big problem is with direction. Directing a game is different than directing a feature. In games, you need to fill almost all silence with ambient music to keep the player from getting bored. Scenes without music tend to heighten the tone. In features, too much music will drown out any tone set by the characters. Unfortunately, AC was directed from a gaming perspective, so the whole thing is almost completely saturated with music.
In all, AC is an interesting piece of work. Despite feeling let down by the production, I was still entertained. I just can't help but feel that with a movie director and more advances in technology, they could've made something more that wasn't just for the die-hard fans.