Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

"The best movie that Square's ever made... is The Spirits Within"

Now, I'm not going to spoil this for people that haven't seen it yet and want to. But I am going to reference one fight that you all know is coming. You know, the one between the guy that you've seen in the articles about this game, the one you thought died and were chasing. Yeah, that one. But, let's face it, we all saw that coming as the end of the movie.

So, let's get it started. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. We've known about this for what seems like forever, and even with what felt like every possible piece of footage released in screens and trailers and promos being broadcast across the 'net, it still had a lot of surprises. And it was a quality experience. There's no doubting that, since this is probably the most polished CG film that I've seen since... well, The Spirits Within. Like the games, Square's given this a level of polish that ensures that there's few glaring problems at all.

Still, as in cars, all the polish in the world won't turn a Chevrolet Corvair into a Maserati 3400 GT. It's what lies beneath that really matters, and, like with TSW, Square's given a very pretty experience that comes off far too shallow for what it's been touted to be.

Story

Story is not a big thing for this movie. And pretty much everyone expected this. This game is meant as fanservice most of all, and to a Square game, which relies on tens of hours to develop the story. The story is just used as a backdrop, which is okay, since many movies have done very well without good stories at all by focusing on other strengths. However, in the case of Advent Children, it feels almost effortless. One big problem with the entire thing is the lack of coherence. Everything seems just randomly thrown together, like Geostigma, the three people going for the Reunion by looking for that spoilerrific severed head, and the whole guy in the wheelchair.

That last one really was badly handled too. After all, the guy is about to say how he survived what put him in the wheelchair, against all odds and logic, something that would be VERY interesting to hear an explanation of, and he's cut off. That just screams 'copout' to me, and I've never liked copouts in any movie.

In short, though, the movie is just fight scene after fight scene with near-random dialogue thrown around just to put it all together. There's no coherent reasoning behind Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo's origins, the origins of geostigma or the wolf, or even how some things could exist after so long (see: object of search) if they've been thought destroyed even though people would have been combing the area where the disappearance occurred for a LONG time with tons of resources. The not-so-little things like that that sort of get it and just take away from the immersion and make the viewer go "Hey..." in that distracted way.

Action

Now when it comes to action, there's fun and then there's boring. Action movies tend to be fun, while stuff like Gigli tends to be boring. It's mainly through repetitiveness. Action movies look good when they break things up and shuffle everything around to make it good. However, in AC, it's just repetitive. It's not the same stuff all the time, no, but since EVERYONE can defy the laws of physics by reacting faster than a tachyon without breaking the speed barrier, out-jump Superman, and generally make Hero and The Matrix look realistic, it's just not that grabbing. As well, all the Limit Breaks just get in the way. It detracts from things because it drags out scenes too long with a 'let's cram it all in ASAP!' feeling, which makes things feel even cheesier.

This wouldn't be a problem if the movie didn't rely on action to do things thanks to the throwaway story. Or if the entire movie wasn't predictably leading up to the big Cloud VS Sephiroth fight. Which, unfortunately, is the biggest waste of potential in the entire movie. Instead of a fight that has the "Wow! That's cool!" effect of a really well done swordfight, there was some random flailing with swords that look alright in anime or in a game, but in the hyper-realistic CG of AC just look plain weird and a little fruity. And while the rest of the movie at least tries to blend in a bit with reality's notions, this fight just throws it all away by having them cut huge buildings in half. This is NOT a mecha movie. Stuff like that looks cool in mecha anime because mechas tend to be bigger than buildings and have giant energy swords. However, seeing it happen on the human level just makes it feel like another "...why?" moment and more crammed.

And Cloud's near-unscratchedness from everything just made it feel even more contrived as the movie went on. Even Neo had that 'possibly can be beaten' aspect about him, while Cloud just gets one giant 'I AM HERO! YOU WILL LOSE NO MATTER WHAT! PERIOD!' bit to him that just removes tension and makes it all feel eventual and inevitable. Not to mention that if the entire lead-up wasn't corny enough with the perpetually giga-anime wirework thing going for it, it's full of stuff like Sephiroth summoning the Obligatory Dark Clouds of Suspense for the battle.

Yeah...

Sure, there was a really rocking remix of One Winged Angel for it all, but at the same time, it's like how a person can have the best music in the world on the radio while driving, yet when you see an accident, you block it out and just stare. The fight captures the attention, but not in a good way beyond the surface. On the surface it's passable, but with anything more than just a casual glance at it, it's nigh-distracting with all the flaws in that particular fight.

Music

As I said before, OWA got a great remix. Which is great. It needed a new version of itself after all this time and arranging. Everything else, however, just didn't fit right, and like the Limits and the dialogue, seemed crammed in just so it was there. Things like Tifa's Theme, the victory jingle ring, and pretty much most of the rest of the OST. It brought back memories of FF VII, yes, but it didn't suit the scene that it was playing during 3/4 times, which is what good music is supposed to do in a movie. It's got some fine quality to it, though, in terms of orchestration, which is great, since cheap synth would not have worked at all for this.

Graphics

Okay, there's semi-realistic, which is CG that looks fairly detailed but you can still tell it's CG. Then there's THIS. Advent Children almost looks real at first glance, but not quite. It's very nicely done, but it always feels like there's something missing. Like there's a weird filter on the camera, like there's too much base on the actress, like there's just too many light sources. While the technical skill to create it is impressive, it feels distracting in its imperfect recreation of reality. Especially against background areas that seem to have almost been taken directly from reality, which accentuates the characters' CG-ness.

As well, many of the characters just don't translate well to this hyper-realistic CG. Like Cloud and Sephiroth. In anime form, they look fine. In the animeish CG of FF VII, they look pretty darn decent. In Advent Children, they just look weird. Both of them have hairstyles that absolutely do not work in reality, even if toned down like they are here, and it shows. Others, like Tifa and Reno, look fine through transition, while Aerith recieves an absolutely gorgeous job and manages to show the best of what Square can pull off in terms of technical excellence. But, in a way, that's the movie in a nutshell. There are some things that make a person just go "ooh" at, like how natural Aerith looks, while so much else is just a bit "...why? It's so over the top...".

Overall, though, it's really quite pleasing to the eyes, with no flaws or artifacts to be seen and a very impressive attention to detail. While there are definite problems, that doesn't stop it from setting the bar for CG movies for a while to come in terms of graphical prowess.

Others

The voice acting is very, very well done, I have to say that. The voices are very natural and work well, and their lines sound as if a real person was saying them. There's nothing unnatural or uncomfortable about them, which is a nice surprise, but doesn't rescue the rest of the movie.

Many people have said in the past that the reason Squall is worse than Cloud is because Square took everything that people liked about Cloud, and made it 10x more so that Squall was "CLOUD TO THE MAX, BADASS SUPREME!" and forgot to put anything else in to fill in the gaps. Really, if anything is the most fanboy-touted aspects of FF VII taken to ridiculous extremes, it is Advent Children, and that sadly gets in the way of what could have been a very entertaining experience. And I mean that sincerely as in "Entertaining in a good way", not "Entertaining in a Plan Nine way".

In the end, I'm really glad that I saw it, just so I could see what it's all about, and see what all the fuss was over. However, in the end, while it did leave me with a lot of thoughts, too many of them were about things that could have been easily fixable in the movie, and with so much production time, it felt to me that they should have been explained better. But it's over, and I'll probably never see the movie again. Still, it's memorable, which is one of the things that movies want and try to be, no matter what end of the spectrum they fall near.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/05