Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

Excellente movie about what happened. Just what i wanted.

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?

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).

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.

Of the three Final Fantasy movies, this is probably the best one, being entertaining to watch and keeping the spirit of the games. The narrative wasn't as muddled as in "Advent Children", and by virtue of being a prequel, is not necessary having to play first any of the games to fully understand the plot.

The visual aspect was rather impressive, featuring a quasi-realistic CGI which almost looks indistinguishable from live-actors in a couple of scenes.

I think some of the games from the series could have been adapted in this kind of movie format.