Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

"Advent Children is a beautiful movie with an interesting, yet bland, storyline."

When the news of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's release reached peoples ears, it caused an uproar amongst those who disliked Final Fantasy VII and those who were its biggest fans. Some saw it as a waste of money designed to milk the popularity of FF VII. Others saw it as a great way to expand on the story of that game while also showcasing some amazing computer generated imagery, like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Any who actually paid to watch The Spirits Within (which, due to how big it flopped, seems to be not too many of us) will likely have split feelings on that movie. It had a bland storyline, a boring futuristic setting and characters that looked like they were mannequins. Even the great voice acting couldn't save it from being mediocre at best. It had its moments but it was generally of poor quality, regardless of what its cult following may feel for it (heck, I own the movie). You needn't worry about any of these problems in this movie, Square has learned from the mistakes of the past and it seem as if they are intent on not making them again. The movie isn't perfect, but it is a fun watch.

Right off the bat it is hard to not compare this movie to The Spirits Within although that would be a bad idea. While they are both CGI movies based on the Final Fantasy series, The Spirits Within only has a miniscule amount of anything to do with the actual games in the series. More importantly than that is the fact that, even though it has only been six year since it was released, the CGI quality has gone up immensely. The characters look less plastic, hair and fur move realistically and their movements are less stiff.

Advent Children continues the storyline of the Final Fantasy VII universe, picking up two years after the game ended. Since the group from that game defeated Sephiroth a strange disease called Geostigma has begun to infect people. The movie focuses on Cloud Strife who, rather quickly into the movie, finds himself besieged by three white haired men for unknown reasons. The story that follows has appearances by most of the characters from the games, including the entire party (no matter how brief their appearance), Rufus Shinra and the Turks. Some of the characters are little more than cameos while a few others have fairly large roles but seem to be relegated to comedic relief.

There is one major focus thrown upon this movie by its detractors and that is the fact that the movie really does just go from one fight to another. The movie really can be broken down into the following: conversation, fight, inner monologue, fight, conversation, fight, etc. However due to how intense most of these fights are, especially the one that involves a certain Summon Materia, this is easily excusable.

It does bear note that if you haven't played the Final Fantasy game that came before this movie, then you might not want to watch the movie. There isn't enough plot and characterization to really make it worth your time. While the movie does look great and the fighting is awesome, it really is like watching a sequel without having bothered to watch the original movie. Some things are glossed over (like a full explanation of just who the heck Jenova is) and it seems as if the movie watcher is expected to know who certain people are and just why their appearance is so bad, or good as the case may be.

That said, the other major plus for the movie is the voice acting and sound design. All of the voice actors are very good and few of them are novices to the field. If you have played the Kingdom Hearts games, then many of these voices will sound fairly familiar to you. If not then you can rest assured that they didn't do a half-arsed job here, they really went out of their way to make sure that the dialogue sounded convincing. There are some few lines that made me scratch my head and I'll be damned if I have a clue as to what Cait Sith is babbling about with that accent of his but overall the dialogue in this movie is more than competent enough.

More impressive than the voice acting is the music. There is plenty to be heard and if you have played the games then you will known much of it. The one thing that definitely stands out is that there is a more heavy rock sounding remix of the song “One-Winged Angel” done by Nobuo Uematsu and his band The Black Mages. Much of the music sounds familiar but has a new spin on it that really helps make it fresher and more fitting for the movie itself.

You cannot really get into the movie if you haven't played the game and this cannot possibly repeated enough. While you might admire the action sequences and how the CGI looks there is too much that is left unexplained for someone to just jump into this movie. This also has the unfortunate side effect of making it very hard to recommend to others. If someone doesn't know all that much about Final Fantasy VII then there are a number of things about the movie that are simply going to not make sense to them.

If you remember Final Fantasy VII fondly then this movie is a must watch. There are few characters that fail to at least make a cameo and the high flying sword fights are a great watch. It is of prime importance that one keeps in mind that this movie was made more to appeal towards those who wanted to watch the crazy fighting between Cloud and crew and their enemies in full CGI. Its impressive compared to what we had to work with in Final Fantasy VII and its a work of art.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/13/07