Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

Excellent world-building, merging the past, present, and future into a unique universe. Character voices are well done, battle and action scenes are gripping, sounds are room-filling. I'm reminded of many other great movies coming together such as Warcraft, Godzilla 2000, Starship Troopers. There's some heart in this one, tough decisions, and consequences laid bare.

A kind of awkwardness to the character's facial expressions and movements prevail, I think this will not likely age well (or perhaps hasn't already). Some parts the music was louder than the dialogue. There were a good number points of confusion as to what was happening and why. Otherwise the plot is all too familiar. As with Spirits Within and many Final Fantasy games, the beginning starts of with a bang, has a curious middle, and disappointing end. Why can't Final Fantasy seem to finish a story?

I wanted to see Final Fantasy XV solely because of the graphics, without any prior knowledge of the game, the plot or its characters. I love 3D graphic animation, and I found the previous FF movies to be the best examples of it. The closest to reality. So seeing this installment was a must.

Graphics has certainly evolved since Advent Children. Kingsglaive is much more colorful and there is much more going on at the same time. The resolution of shading is better and it is seen on the faces of the characters. On the down side of it, it is still not as lively as I would have wanted it to be. It's as if the game graphic engine was used to generate the animation using complex algorithms. It is seen in the movement of the body parts, which are still a bit robotic and less human.

The plot is convoluted, but it is something I had expected, seeing the previous Final Fantasy movies. But the ending is quite blurred, and a big 'What's now?' question hangs in the air.

The action is all over. The battle at the beginning is amazing. It's ingenious, tense and full of occurrences. The battle at the end, on the other hand, is overlong and more superficial. Moreover, I didn't always understood what's going on.

After starting with a fairly clunky prologue with the obligatory voice-over-- which I told myself to endure, since Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is obviously not some stand-alone/origin story-- my jaw just kept dropping throughout the movie... until I picked it after the final credits (with the somewhat tongue-in-cheek easter egg).

That the script steep in Final Fantasy lore, with its huge cast of characters and no end of plot-twists, could stay so clear and connected means it must have been worked over at least 10 times more than Blizzard's Warcraft movie.... And viewers (especially on repeated viewings) will probably thank the Japanese writer for trusting the audience to follow the main thrust of the story (and for trusting the voice and motion-capture actors to deliver), instead of stuffing with tendentious exposition or character moments (how many different ways do we want to see Marth Stewart's or Uncle Ben's death?).

And despite all the western voice actors, 3D models and high fantasy tropes-- this is Asian 3D film-making at its best, with animation studios from Shanghai to Thailand being led by a Japanese production team that clearly worked with a lot of budget/time constraints but also a very, very firm vision. The details, close-ups and slow-mos are only there when there is an action or dramatic beat to be hit and never felt gratuitous (hint to Zack Snyder: it's about how much weight, not clutter, you can put into a scene/sequence-- take it from Superman'78)

For a movie primarily designed as advertisement/periphery for the Final Fantasy franchise, I can pay it no higher compliment than saying-- this is the way sequel baiting should be done! It may not have anything truly new/original to say or show-- but as one of the few frenetic fantasy action movies that actually manages its diverging/ converging plot-lines and action-sequences rather well (vs say, the live-action Transformers movies), it was just a pleasure to sit through (& try catching up with everything!).

TL;DR: Would watch again! Recommended to genre-fans as one of the few truly uncompromising genre-film (hence the positive word-of-mouth in Japan vs general/mainstream movie-goers).

Wow! Just wow! There was a time when I thought Resident Evil and Beowulf were good CGI makes. But this just takes it to a new level. This is what superhero movies and co. should look like. It gives a lot of license to use reality with graphics.

I must also say that I know nothing about Final Fantasy games, so I can't say if the story is coherent with the games or not. But I still liked it and the story wasn't so difficult to follow. Everything is fully explained.

This movie was not just CG, it had the story, the heart. You could feel what the character was feeling, and everything made sense. Have to give a 10/10 for direction as well.

There's no denying the graphical barrage "Kingsglaive" constantly throws for nearly two hours is brazenly stunning. The vistas are absolutely marvelous, its characters look eerily lively and the fights are utterly unworldly. With all of these mighty productions, it's still vexed by occasional choppy pace and sporadic hop in screenplay.

The story is delivered in a sci-fi fantasy realm. It's a very politically focused tale and it does try to deliver many subplots and characters, no doubt a foundation for the game's world and its splendor. The problem lies as it often skips from one scene abruptly without giving the audience much sense for the flow of time or the clarity of vital motivation. It's all dramatic in presentation, yet it can feel a bit muddled, more so since it's quite the lengthy showing.

Characters are relatively well done, especially the ones with famous names. Usually the dubbing in English for such production looks jarring, but here Lena Headley's or Aaron Paul's voice is implemented properly. The lip sync is fine and there's a boon on having fantasy oriented voice for the cast. A minor flaw would be the dialogues or sound effect don't convey the sense of urgency at times, but it's mostly understandable.

The visual ramps up as the battles progress. These are very hectic occurrences, the fast cut can leave audience wandering on what transpires on the screen since there are many effects and motions cramped into brief composition of scenes. However, when it retains the focus or follows the action, it is arguably one of the most eye-popping spectacles from animated movie.

The sheer graphical prowess produces an entirely captivating world, even though it stumbles on overly complex narrative or overly fast editing.