I am being generous giving this abomination a 2. It's getting 2 because the characters were portrayed more or less like in the game (which was, for the most part, a well written fiction), and the graphics were nice.
Everything else about this film is wrong. Like with reviewing all terrible things, it's hard to know where to begin.
1. Localization is BAD. Let's start with my title: "Dilly Dally, Shilly Shally". This is a symptom of a terrible localization. You'd think that after the original game's problematic localization that at least THIS would be up to scratch... but no. I won't waste your time telling you what the Japanese was meant to convey—just Google it and find out. The nonsensical phrase above indicates the localization team was either on drugs or mentally deficient. The whole localization is poor. It's actually a slight improvement to watch this film in Japanese with English subs. I say 'slight' because that won't fix the crap script, plot, pacing, or anything else, sadly.
2. The plot makes absolutely no sense. Part of the reason is that Final Fantasy VII is a massive game with a huge story and, any sequel, even if well scripted, would likely need to be three hours long to tell a coherent tale. No effort was attempted. I watched the "Complete" version of this film and timed the amount of scenes dedicated to meaningless, out of control, and totally implausible battle sequences— it came to around 1/3 of the film. When you see things like this, you should instantly be aware that the writers are compensating for a lack-luster story. In this case, they are also appealing to FF7 fanboys, who will buy anything Final Fantasy as long as it has cool graphics. Square Enix has churned out a lot of Sequel-Prequel cash-ins since 1997. And fans just keep on biting.
3. The pacing is dire. The film is so busy trying to disguise its short-comings with battle sequences that it forgets to tell a story or have a proper narrative. No sooner are your characters in a setting where some meaningful dialogue can take place than something happens to thrust you into another coma inducing battle sequence.
4. The film is written like it is a game. Sigh... The genres are completely different, but some morons at Square Enix (including some of the original staff) thought that it would be a good idea to use game elements in a film. As a result, physics, gravity, logic, and reason are thrown out of the window. Characters are smashed into walls at 100 mph without a scratch... Look, I'm getting fed up with this review already. Just like the film, it's boring me. Needless to say, if you are intelligent enough to understand why believability matters to a fiction, you are too intelligent to watch this insulting film. In the game, battle elements are often treated as non-story elements because that's desirable—a player uses logic to decide how to interpret the battle in the wider scheme of things. The story in the game maintained the suspension of disbelief and didn't go too far, too often. This pile of rubbish doesn't care. Unfortunately, I have had the misfortune of debating this issue on a fan forum, and the overwhelming majority agreed that logic doesn't matter and that any and all things that happen in a story are acceptable. Little wonder, then, that these same people praise and defend this garbage.
5. Apart from Cloud (who is now an emo), the characters were well designed and acted like their game counterparts. Unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. The game versions had proper motivations and lengthy conversations. This film just wants to get you to the next battle sequence. It doesn't help that the fanboy servicing required numerous retcons (like dead characters returning - itself a sign of lazy, crap writing) to take place, and for every established former character to make an appearance, no matter the justification.
I am one of the biggest FF7 fans. I have recently finished a complete relocalization for the original game, found here: http://goo.gl/QBrX7B. But unlike some fans, I am not deluded by fanboyism. I know the short comings of the game and of this movie (if you can call it that). This film was made for the sole purpose of exploiting mindless fanboys - to make a quick buck. And on that front, it worked. If you aren't familiar with the game, I dread to think how much worse this film will be for you.
This film is an ABSOLUTE example of what NOT TO DO.
Everything else about this film is wrong. Like with reviewing all terrible things, it's hard to know where to begin.
1. Localization is BAD. Let's start with my title: "Dilly Dally, Shilly Shally". This is a symptom of a terrible localization. You'd think that after the original game's problematic localization that at least THIS would be up to scratch... but no. I won't waste your time telling you what the Japanese was meant to convey—just Google it and find out. The nonsensical phrase above indicates the localization team was either on drugs or mentally deficient. The whole localization is poor. It's actually a slight improvement to watch this film in Japanese with English subs. I say 'slight' because that won't fix the crap script, plot, pacing, or anything else, sadly.
2. The plot makes absolutely no sense. Part of the reason is that Final Fantasy VII is a massive game with a huge story and, any sequel, even if well scripted, would likely need to be three hours long to tell a coherent tale. No effort was attempted. I watched the "Complete" version of this film and timed the amount of scenes dedicated to meaningless, out of control, and totally implausible battle sequences— it came to around 1/3 of the film. When you see things like this, you should instantly be aware that the writers are compensating for a lack-luster story. In this case, they are also appealing to FF7 fanboys, who will buy anything Final Fantasy as long as it has cool graphics. Square Enix has churned out a lot of Sequel-Prequel cash-ins since 1997. And fans just keep on biting.
3. The pacing is dire. The film is so busy trying to disguise its short-comings with battle sequences that it forgets to tell a story or have a proper narrative. No sooner are your characters in a setting where some meaningful dialogue can take place than something happens to thrust you into another coma inducing battle sequence.
4. The film is written like it is a game. Sigh... The genres are completely different, but some morons at Square Enix (including some of the original staff) thought that it would be a good idea to use game elements in a film. As a result, physics, gravity, logic, and reason are thrown out of the window. Characters are smashed into walls at 100 mph without a scratch... Look, I'm getting fed up with this review already. Just like the film, it's boring me. Needless to say, if you are intelligent enough to understand why believability matters to a fiction, you are too intelligent to watch this insulting film. In the game, battle elements are often treated as non-story elements because that's desirable—a player uses logic to decide how to interpret the battle in the wider scheme of things. The story in the game maintained the suspension of disbelief and didn't go too far, too often. This pile of rubbish doesn't care. Unfortunately, I have had the misfortune of debating this issue on a fan forum, and the overwhelming majority agreed that logic doesn't matter and that any and all things that happen in a story are acceptable. Little wonder, then, that these same people praise and defend this garbage.
5. Apart from Cloud (who is now an emo), the characters were well designed and acted like their game counterparts. Unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. The game versions had proper motivations and lengthy conversations. This film just wants to get you to the next battle sequence. It doesn't help that the fanboy servicing required numerous retcons (like dead characters returning - itself a sign of lazy, crap writing) to take place, and for every established former character to make an appearance, no matter the justification.
I am one of the biggest FF7 fans. I have recently finished a complete relocalization for the original game, found here: http://goo.gl/QBrX7B. But unlike some fans, I am not deluded by fanboyism. I know the short comings of the game and of this movie (if you can call it that). This film was made for the sole purpose of exploiting mindless fanboys - to make a quick buck. And on that front, it worked. If you aren't familiar with the game, I dread to think how much worse this film will be for you.
This film is an ABSOLUTE example of what NOT TO DO.