FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN

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VOICES OF: Takahiro Sakurai, Ayumi Ito, Shotaro Morikubo

2005, 101 Minutes, Directed by: Tetsuya Nomura

Description: Continuing the storyline based on the hit Playstation game Final Fantasy VII, two years have passed since the ruins of Midgar stand as a testament to the sacrifices made in order to bring peace. However, the world will soon face a new menace. A mysterious illness is spreading fast. Old enemies are astir. And Cloud, who walked away from the life of a hero to live in solitude, must step forward yet again . . .
 — Amazon.com

When some major characters that haven’t been featured before literally plopped out of the sky at the one-hour mark to help the hero battle the villains, we finally gave up on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

No, the VII nomenclature doesn’t mean that you’ve missed out on several hastily-produced sequels between this movie and the 2001 movie, Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within. Final Fantasy VII is the movie sequel to the, um, computer games that inspired the first Final Fantasy movie . . . Except that there doesn’t seem to be any connection whatsoever between the computer games and the first Final Fantasy movie.

Whatever. The point is that this movie is aimed squarely at fans of the Final Fantasy games and no one else need apply. Somehow it was inevitable that not only would movies one day look like the computer games that inspired them, but that movie sequels would be made to computer games.

" . . . there’s a warrior named Cloud with a, um, really big sword."

I was however wondering whether gamers at whom the movie is ultimately aimed would be all that happy with Final Fantasy VII. After all, it is like watching someone else play a computer game over their shoulders — and if you’re not playing yourself, what’s the point of that? Essentially a computer game without any interactivity, Final Fantasy VII just keeps on getting worse: newbies or people who haven’t been following the computer game for quite a while will have a tough time following the plot, which is at once too complicated (there is too much of a complex back story) and too simple (it really serves as little else than an excuse to tie one fight sequence to the next).

The animation is detailed, but the “tasteful” grey hues give it a dull drab look. The plot involves . . . um, where to begin? There is a whole lot of New Age gobbledygook about Gaia (the Earth) having been betrayed by giant Electricity firms. Then there’s a warrior named Cloud with a, um, really big sword who fights a motorbike gang consisting of some pansy-looking long-haired anime types. There is a lot of fighting. People drop out of the air. They fight some more. The End. In this sort of thing they would usually throw in some big-breasted female character to distract from the various plot inanities, but Final Fantasy VII never accords its viewers that sort of courtesy. And in-between all the fighting emo anime characters I just really missed that . . .