One is better than the other. Guess which one.

FINAL FANTASY SPIRITS WITHIN

I saw Final Fantasy the Spirits Within at the theater when it was shown over this city on its opening weekend. Needless to say I tried keeping myself awake during the entire thing just because I wanted to see how it would end. At the end of the entire ridiculous thing one guy shouted how much it sucked and I nodded to that, walking out feeling cheated out of the money wasted in watching it there than actually just waiting to do so a lot cheaper by renting it on DVD format.

One of its obvious faults is the fact that this movie doesn't seem to have any relation to any of the games on the acclaimed gaming series. None. There is nothing on it that would tell you it’s a FINAL FANTASY related film in the least. I even read an article on a game magazine at that time that Square confirmed there would be no immediate relation to the games and that the only thing it could be treated as such is because of the THEMES of said games incorporated into that movie, which of course was also a blatant lie overall.

The movie centers itself around its protagonist named Aki and her relation to some space ghosts that invaded Earth (?) years ago and the remaining populace fighting to survive. The movie tries hard in explaining the story, plot, and anything else while still losing you on the entire thing. If you had watched more than half the movie at this point I can guarantee that you already lost interest on the main points of the story and just wanted to finish it to move on with your life, lamenting the fact no one ever bothered to summon Bahamut to incinerate the bad guys.

Its quite the bore fest and Square blew all that money in making it a CGI heavy effects film that would had worked better as a side project than actually making it a theatrical release of any kind.
With that out of the way:

FINAL FANTASY ADVENT CHILDREN

Say what you will about this one, it at least was based on one of the games, most importantly one of the most famous ones the franchise wiped out during the Playstation days and quite the most celebrated of all as well.
And while its not perfect, you can at least admire the work done on it, bringing characters from the game to life in all its advanced CGI movie glory and with all the drama that the games ooze when you play them. The dubbing is not that admirable but I really never cared much about it being I was too busy ogling at the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth to bother.

I can't remember if this was also a theatrical release in the USA or just made it straight to video after Japan was done watching it, but I will say that it was leagues better than what it was done with Spirits Within for sure. Way....way better. It was like a much needed bleach to wash your brain on the former ever entering your memory banks.

In this movie we have Cloud moping around after what happened in the game and struggling with the rest of Midgar because a nasty disease began spreading and no one seemingly was saved from it. He and some of the cast of the game then have to deal with a trio of crazy guys who are looking for Jenova or as they refer her as "mother," to unknown reasons as why they want anything that may had survived and may still be around. Needless to say without much explanation as to what is going on Cloud and company fight a gigantic dragon that suddenly appears out of nowhere then goes on fight Sephiroth one last time for nostalgic points and that was fine with me.

Advent Children pretty much accomplished what Spirits Within ever hoped to do, that is, a fancy eye candy devoted to Final Fantasy games without caring much on making sense as long as it made you feel like you were watching something that was RELATED to the source material instead of watching how Square liked making over the top CGI projects. If Spirits Within had more to do with Final Fantasy then maybe I could had liked it as much as I did Advent Children. Maybe.

I know there are more Anime and movie adaptations on many of the Final Fantasy games, including one about XV which I did watched, but never thought much about it since I had never played XV to begin with and in turn have little to know about what the game is about for me in making a review about it. I will then end my venture into Final Fantasy media for the time being with these two movies I had discussed/ranted about.

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