After the population gets infected with an incurable disease, the faith and trust of Cloud, an ex-warrior who fought in an epic battle to defeat Sephiroth, are at their lowest. Also infected, he must find a way to get rid of all bad thoughts and save the world once again as new enemies arrive and are up to no good. Set two years after the crash of Shin-Ra company, this movie presents the adventures of Cloud and his friends in their attempt to eliminate the enemies who threaten the planet while also trying to fix his mental issues.It's a movie which you can tell from the beginning that it's targeted to a small audience. It assumes that the viewer already knows about the characters and their past adventures and doesn't even bother to at least try and explain the basics. Although it is visually stunning, with great sound and special effects, it features a mediocre plot which simply drags it down more than it would have deserved. You can have the greatest visuals, the best universe and the best sound to impress anybody who looks at it, but from my point of view, the most important part of any movie, especially when it comes to animations, is by far the story. And this is exactly where this movie fails, big time actually. Besides the disappointment that it does not have almost any link to the story from the game and that it doesn't move a muscle to explain a bit what is going on, it simply lets the viewer down in any single way in terms of plot. It's linear, predictable, full of repetitive and even boring fight scenes which don't do it any good. And, as the entire movie, the finale is easy to predict and gives almost no satisfaction because of this.It's a shame that the producers decided to focus so much on the visuals, which I will say again that are simply astonishing, and go along with a mediocre and very easy to guess plot. It is apparently intended only for hard-core fans of the series and this, in my opinion, is a big letdown.

Well, after seeing too many awful movies based on video games to count, I finally struck gold with what many people consider to be the best of its kind. I admit to not being a fan of the "Final Fantasy" series, but know enough about popular culture to know about what many people consider to be the best in the whole series "Final Fantasy VII". The FF series themselves have little to do with each other, so it's easy for anyone to learn about them individually. But I'm getting off topic. This is a great movie for really anybody. It was weird to see a CGI film from Japan.While their games have made the transition to CGI, their animated films haven't. I guess that's just their business. This of course has great animation. I was expecting a lot of this to just be Sephiroth appearing and fighting Cloud, but was quite surprised to have other characters appear as the main villains and Sephiroth only appears near the end. The voices are great, especially Sephiroth's. It has a solid story with the opening narration even telling us everything that's already happened so that everyone can understand it. It was great to hear the source of that great music. ***1/2

It took me a awhile to recognize this movie was a spoof. A spoof of almost every anime commonplace (and also hollywoodian commonplace) that there is. The invincible soldier (sorry SOLDIER) who lost his faith, orphans, evil who is evil for evils sake, flashy pop star hair on everybody (even freshly washed and dried hair on kids who live on the street), friendship surviving everything, crying bad boys, I can't even list all of them. All wrapped up in cheesy CG (say that many times), all shiny, glossy, glassy, gleamy, sparkles, sprinkles, chuckles. And of course no coherent story - nobody would need it. I mean: who needs story for a porn movie? Its just the visuals, a tour de force in CG. Yes we can (make the hair real), yes we can (make the water real), yes we can (make the skin real), etc. I liked the best when at two thirds of the movie heroes come out of the blue :) They just appear. They get introduced and start to fight :) WTF? Genius!So I had fun watching it :)

Before I begin my review I should probably point out that this film is the reason why I got into Final Fantasy in the first place. My review here focuses on the Extended "Complete" Blu-ray release of the film; not the original version. To be perfectly honest, I didn't like the original version, but the Complete version solves many problems that the original had.Pros:Visuals - This is one of the most visually stunning examples of animation I've ever seen. Not only does it create that video game "feel", but the animators managed to make the characters seem realistic while avoiding the uncanny valley.Audio - This film has some excellent audio and sound quality to accompany each on-screen situation. Both the English and Japanese versions have good voice acting and dialogue (Cloud and Tifa for example).Story - Now, I've heard a lot of fans and critics criticize this film's story line for being a repeat of Final Fantasy VII's story. However, this is not entirely true. The story - being about three remnants of Sephiroth who plan to bring him back by finding the remaining Jenova cells might seem uncreative, but it's actually a good thing because it's simple enough for non-FFVII-gamers to understand, while also allowing FFVII gamers to experience a story similar to the game in a new way.Characters - I think the characters in this film are well scripted. Cloud and Reno's attitudes have changed from the game, but I think that's beneficial. Plus, two years had passed, so God only knows how people can change over that time frame. I think Cloud's character development and the support he receives from his friends is one of the highlights.Action - I know some people have criticized the film for being too action heavy, and I agree, but I think that criticism applies almost entirely to the original version. The Complete version however, has enough new plot footage to make the film seem less like one giant fight scene and more like a story. It's still action-heavy, but this is a movie tie-in to a video game anyway. The Complete version has the perfect balance between action scenes and story detail.Cons:Lack of Character Backstory - While the Complete version does explain the main premise and the relationships between characters, it could have done a better job of explaining exactly who the characters are, and the significance of their roles. Thus, non-FFVII gamers should probably do some research on the main characters before watching the film.Rare Goofy Moments - There was a scene where 9-year-old Denzel runs angrily towards an enormous monster. I know that movies have a habit of making child characters do stupid things, but this one scene was so ridiculous that I cannot excuse it. Seriously, what was he thinking?Also, while most of the comic relief provided by Reno & Rude was pretty good, some of it just wasn't funny due to the otherwise serious and realistic tone to the film. For example, the scene where the sign falls on top of Rude would have been funny if he just fell over instead of stumbling around like in a cartoon.While the cons did make this film seem a bit cheesy or irritating at times, they were a minority. Overall, I think most of the film was handled fairly well, and it's a good example of a video game movie. If you have a Blu-ray player, and can understand the characters and storyline, I would highly recommend this to those who love animated films and intense action.