Advent Children 2

The Video

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a gorgeous film, far surpassing any cut scene ever seen in a Square Enix game, and obliterating the standard set by the theatrically-released Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

The environments are imaginative and beautifully-wrought, the characters are adeptly animated, and the fabric and hair work is some of the best we've seen from CG-animated fare. Perhaps the greatest compliment you can pay the artists who slaved so diligently over the film is that often you completely forget you're watching an animated creation.

Luckily, the transfer is up to the task of bringing the intricate detail to the disc. In fact, it's fully possible that this will be the prettiest DVD in your collection. Much of the film takes place in a grayish world (especially the middle third), but when it breaks out of this, the colors are brilliant. Even in the dark scenes, everything is well-balanced. Blacks maintain a panoply of shades even in low-light settings.

There are a few moments when characters pass by the "camera" closely, and there are some artifacts in these moments, but nothing to sneeze at. Ultimately, the video is pretty amazing; just what you'd hope for from a work of art that was born digitally and transferred digitally. The disc is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen in order to capture every unbelievable frame of detail.

Languages and Audio

Let's get all of the technical stuff out of the way first: this disc is offered in English and Japanese 5.1 and subtitled in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, Mandarin (Traditional) and Chinese.

Hardcore otaku will likely want to listen to the Japanese track and read the English subtitles, but those who choose to listen to the English voices will not be disappointed. Across the board, the English voicing is spot-on, with standout performances by Steve Burton as Cloud, George Newbern as Sephiroth and Rachael Leigh Cook as Tifa Lockhart. The Japanese vocal work is also brilliant, should you choose to listen to it, but if you read the subtitles, you'll get a slightly different version of the events (as is usually the case).

Beyond voicing, the mix on the disc is brilliant. There are tons of battle sequences to keep your stereo happy, and all of them have generous amounts of directional sound, driving music and plenty of low-end whoomp. Nothing ever gets drowned out, though. The voices are always in the fore, but when it's time for ass-kicking to begin, the music ramps up beautifully to fill in the gaps. Although there are numerous battle sequences throughout, the most climactic (which I won't reveal to avoid spoilers) makes ultimate use of all the channels, rivaling some of the biggest fight sequences in Hollywood action movies (think Matrix Reloaded-style treatment). It cannot be overstated just how well-done overall the audio portion of this disc is.


The Extras

Final Fantasy fans should delight in the number of extras available on this two-disc special edition. Disc One contains the Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII.

Disc Two has the following goodies:

• The Distance: Making of Featurette.
  
• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Venice Film Festival footage.
  
• Sneak Peek of Upcoming Final Fantasy VII games.
  
• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children trailers.
  
• Deleted scenes.

The Disc One Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII segment is a handy refresher course for anyone who has not played the PlayStation game, or who hasn't played it for quite some time. It is an amalgamation of the essential moments and cut scenes from the Final Fantasy game. It shows off a couple of things: how closely the opening of the film mimics some of the cinematics in VII and just how polygonal PlayStation graphics now appear. Watch this feature after the movie and you'll really get a sense of it. The presence of the Reminiscence in this set is absolutely necessary for those who want to brush up on the story. The presentation isn't amazing, but it gets the job done.

This news was taken from http://dvd.ign.com/

To be continued...