Tuesday, 30 August 2016

REVIEW - KINGSGLAIVE: FINAL FANTASY XV (NOZUE TAKESHI)


The things we do for love... Full disclosure: this will be the first film in over 1,000 reviews to date for this site that I saw for the sake of someone else. It served its purpose - Thomas was satisfied, but Patrick was not. I cannot outright pan a film that so successfully satisfies its target audience, that fulfils all of their legitimate requirements and expectations in both an artistic capacity and a narrative one. Nor can I do so for a film into which went an evidently enormous amount of effort. The detail in the animation is immense, with astounding composition and incredible, at times photoreal human animation in the lead character. But otherwise, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is a mostly tiresome film for those outside of the aforesaid target audience. My poor eyes and ears lack the capability to keep up with films like this, plotted and designed like video games (though I can't fault Kingsglaive for such a quality) - they don't know the details on which to focus, the content that's there for mere decoration and that that's there for material purpose. To my senses, it's all decoration, pretty pictures that aren't even especially pretty, an over-complicated plot that nevertheless leads to the same, predictable action sequences. Those sequences are shot through with vivacity, but often so much of it that they bludgeon the viewer into numbed indifference; their prevalence and repetitiveness make Kingsglaive a particularly exhausting, unrewarding experience. It's nothing more than an overwrought, elaborate trailer for arguably the biggest video game of all time, though insofar as that is all it aspired toward, its achievements are undeniable, its validity indubitable. But I didn't want to see it, and I want never to see anything like it again.

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