I didn't realize Final Fantasy VII fans were so negative about this movie. This might be because I look at Advent Children in the context of other CGI movies rather than in the context of Square Enix's other content, but from the first trailer I ever saw, Advent Children was unique. To this day, there's still nothing like it. The thing about CGI movies is that as soon as you step outside the typical children and family genre, storytelling and filmmaking techniques go out the window. No one seems to know how to use CGI effectively to tell a story. Most of the time, the story is just an excuse to make something that looks photorealistic (e.g. The Polar Express, Beowulf, Kingsglaive) or the art style mimics 2D animation with cell shading, as if that can make up for the fact that the film gives the viewer no reason to care about its protagonist (e.g. Vexille, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker, .hack//Beyond the World).

If this is just a cash grab, it's a well crafted one. Someone on the team knew what the heck they were doing when they made Advent Children. Someone apparently had a vision of a story they wanted to tell and a message they wanted to say. Someone cared about shot composition, video editing, and lighting. Each shot and each scene says something or does something that advances the story, builds the world, and/or develops the characters. Someone realized that they didn't have to cell shade or make the film photorealistic to avoid The Uncanny Valley. Someone decided to tell the story in an unconventional way through visuals rather than spoon feeding the plot through dialog. They give us reasons to sympathize with Cloud and don't turn him into an invincible super protagonist. While he has superhuman strength, he's sick, distraught, and easily exhausted. The characters don't follow the laws of physics, but they follow more than The Rule of Cool to keep dramatic tension.

Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
the story is contrived and only serves as a means to move the viewer from the action scenes which make up the majority of the film, giving the movie the same format as a porn film.
You say everything in the film is just an excuse to get from one action scene to the next, but isn't that the point of all action movies? I agree in a bad action movie, the action scenes are pointless visual spectacles/action porn, probably featuring a city being destroyed in a tsunami and hundreds of thousands of people dying while the seemingly invincible protagonist and antagonist beat each other in the face. There are no stakes. There are no rules. There's no reason to care about what's happening unless you just like looking at it.

But the action scenes in Advent Children are scenes, integral to advancing the plot, building the world, and/or developing the characters. Because Advent Children doesn't use the laws of physics, it must establish its own rules and elements of battle as part of the fight scenes, which it does. The shot choices establish where the characters are in space, show what they're feeling, and their personalities. This is why the battles have significance for the characters and look so great. Cloud and Tifa are introduced to the bad guys in fight scenes, Cloud confirms his uselessness when he attempts to save the orphans in a fight scene, all the fight scenes are losses until Cloud regains his confidence in a fight scene alongside his friends, Cloud attempts to prove he can fight alone with his battle against Kadaj but he still needs the memories of his friends to defeat Sephiroth in the final battle. What Cloud really needs to do in the film to be happy is reunite with his friends, but the fights are where he confronts the demons and memories in his head, which is one way to show an invisible struggle in a visual medium.

Advent Children is mostly action and visuals because that's how it tells its story. Using dialog minimally is how the creators chose to tell the story, not a flaw. Perhaps the creators could have had a little more explanatory dialog, but that doesn't discredit the entire story as garbage. Of course, the action scenes look spectacular. That's what an action movie is supposed to do. Of course, the visuals look beautiful. Who wants to look at butt ugly artwork for an hour and a half? The fact that this movie looks good doesn't mean that it's empty visual spectacle.

I can see why you wouldn't like this movie if you don't like action movies or you don't think a Final Fantasy VII movie should have been an action movie or you simply don't agree with what happened in the film based on what you saw in the game, but that doesn't make this movie or its story objectively bad.