Didn't hold high hopes for this film since I wasn't particularly engrossed in Final Fantasy VII's story anyway... but I was interested to see how well it could be adapted to film. I guess the thing I wanted to see most was how they would incorporate fight scenes. I watched the 'complete' version, in which more footage was added to extend the original movie and clarified a few plot points. Reading the summary at the back of the box, I was skeptical of the plot, still, I was excited to watch it though (it had been sitting in the cupboard for a few months before I ended up watching it). The first hour felt bloated and very boring (since we had a depressed and antisocial Cloud already in the game... I do not want to spend half of the movie seeing another one). I hated how the scenes were abruptly cut from one to another, it wasn't done well, it felt confusing and annoying. Personally, I didn't like how the story developed, the basic idea was okay, but the execution wasn't to my tastes. One of the biggest attractions of the film is the promise to see the characters in all their detailed glory. For that part, it was good, I loved seeing how each character's design was tweaked and yet still recognizable. That said, apart from Cloud and Tifa, the rest of the cast felt shoehorned in. You just didn't get the warm feeling when the team came together again to fight the monster.
The reason being is that they didn't have a central part of the story, what they did, anyone could have done. Reno was probably my favourite character, although his actions and the humour were stuff that's bee done before, I still found it amusing (and better than all the cool/cold looks that other characters seem to love giving to each other). I have to admit, I only liked the second half since the pacing got faster, yet only Cloud did most of the fighting. It's understandable since he's the central character, but I would have preferred teamwork instead. It's sad to think that I was waiting during the whole movie until Sephiroth turned up, such that I never really paid much attention nor cared about the three Remnants, but when he did turn up, it felt kind of unreal and contrived. As was the constant flashbacks to Aeris/Aerith and Zack, they appeared once too many times. Music was... interesting, I loved the part where one of the guys had the fanfare from FFVII as the ringtone. Not sure if I really enjoyed the movie or not, the beginning bored the hell out of me while the second part was exciting.
