Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Source: dodelaumi.blogpot.com

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

One of the arguably best games ever made Final Fantasy VII (seven) has a movie adaptation that takes us back to the world of Cloud Strife and his friends. If you played the old game on playstation, or the spin-off on playstation 2, or one of the newer ones on psp, or . . . I think you get the point if you liked anything made because of this game, you'll enjoy this movie! If for nothing else but the action, you'll love it! You've got familiar characters in a memorable environment fighting the ultimate evil: what's not to love?

The Plot

The movie stars out with Red XIII, a orange-ish colored, male, tiger like animal, with a flame on the end of his tail, who can talk and is the last survivor of his race, running through some dusty hills with oddly enough smaller versions of him. This is about 500 years after the events of the first game and this opening was the "good" ending to the FFVII game. You defeat the bad guy some bad stuff happens and the game ends. You don't even know if the character's survived. Well this movie answered that question!

We get a voice over that briefly explains the plot of the first game. Sephiroth wants to destroy the planet because of the evil that Shinra, a corrupt, world dominating minded organization, had done to him. They made him into the perfect solider and that's what drove him crazy. Cloud, with the help of his friends, attempted to stop him and eventually they do, sort of.

The movie shows us that the earth is still fighting back and this time the earth has attacked with a disease. As the story progresses you meet all the other characters from the game and they join cloud in fighting against this group of brother's who eventually combine together and become Sephiroth!

Good Little Quirks

There's plenty of funny scenes in this movie because we get to see the comic relief characters, get beat up and the movie plays on some of the characters traits from the game. For instance, early in the movie you have Barret call cloud on his celly (cell phone) and left him a voice message that started off as "What up fool!"

You also get to see the bad guys fight using materia. Materia is used in the game to heal, cure, shoot fire balls and lighting, and summon monsters. The bad guys have full control over these crystallized balls of energy and they summon the king of monsters Bahamut! Cloud then, with a little assistance from his friends, has to take the monster down!

Source: dfsm.org

Bad Little Quirks

Unfortunately, you don't get to understand all of the characters. The movie explains enough so a new viewer understands the gist of what's going on, but doesn't explain who's who. Plus, most of the fighting is done by Cloud. This is not to say the characters don't fight because they do. It just that Cloud gets all the good stuff. It would have been nice to see the shape shifting vampire, the well trained ninja, or the orange tiger fight (Red XIII).

I also felt a little cheated that the materia was in the hands of the bad guys. I waited for the moment that the main characters would get it and go to work on their enemies, but that never happened. : ( Cloud and his friends did eventually get the materia, but they didn't use it. There was a reason, but as a chance to evoke some strong nostalgic feelings, reminiscing of that one time you were playing the game and . . . it was totally like that, is impossible to completely feel without materia. At least, that is, it was for me.

Graphics

I have to say the graphics in this movie were fantastic! You get scenes of immaculate beauty, the people show expressions, and the battles pull you in. For instance, Tifa, the hand-to-hand combat girl of the group battles the enemy where she barrages them with punch-kick combinations and slams them into the ground. She, however is completely powerless against them and gets thrown against the wall. Instead of falling against the wall in defeat she flips in mid air, lands on the wall feet first with such a force that the flowers around her blow away.

Source: colsplay.com

The above photo is an adaptation of what happened. The funny thing is this is just one of the battles in the movie and the the most action packed one but that's not the focus. The focus is how real these computer animated people seem fighting in a fantasy like fight! Although, I must say this was one of the best scenes because it was fought with fist and was more realistic than any other scene. If you have time, take a look at a video adaptation of this battle (takes about two mins) to some techno music (the part I'm referring to happens around 1.35):





Conclusion

Overall this is a decent action packed movie. If you're looking for a strong storyline with dynamic characters, this isn't the movie for you. If were weren't a fan and never heard of Final Fantasy, the action will keep you interested because there's a lot of it. If you are a fan, then you'll enjoy this quick trip into the past.