Movie Review: "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children" (2005)

I just saw this two nights ago. I have to admit. I was not a fan of Final Fantasy before but I knew about the franchise and knew SOME of the characters (what with all the posters and all the fanboys I hung out with in college and all). I wasn't sure what to make out of this strange and unusual release.

It's a movie (I think it's supposed to be a straight to DVD release or an online download) with the storyline following the PlayStation video game Final Fantasy VII. Two years after the events that happened in FFVII, the world is infected with a strange disease called 'Geostigma'. Cloud is an ex-SOLDIER, part of an elite group of warriors. He is living a reclusive life away from his warrior-friends, when suddenly, Rufus, the evil former President of Shinra, Inc, the company responsible for sucking the 'Lifestream'(life force) away from the earth's surface for financial gain, calls him and asks fro protection from a certain Kadaj and his brothers. Kadaj is the main antagonist in the story an d is hellbent on stealing 'mother' (a fluid that represents life force) which will give him power to rule the world.

Confused? yeah it took me a good 20 minutes to figure out the story AFTER watching it because, and this is probably a good thing for some people and a a bad thing for almost everybody, The story deepends a lot on the viewer's foreknowledge of the Final Fantasy franchse. The characters are never introduced, the just swoop in and you are expected to know who they are. It's a good thing I saw this movie alone, otherwise I would be left out if I had seen this with my college buds who knew the difference between Tifa and Rinoa and Why Cloud has so many swords in his motorbike.

In the first half, we are treated with not much story development, its quite boring if you're not well versed with the terminologies and the background storyline (but I bet fanboys get a hard-on everytime a familiar term or background storyline footnote is mentioned). Then everything picks up and gets compensated by the action sequences. I have never seen such adrenaline coming out of CGI since The Incredibles (stop laughing geeks! I realize that The Incredibles is another totally different school of thought!) The well 'choreographed' (for the lack of as better term) fight between Tifa and Loz was a sight to see and only paved the way foe more spectacular sequences to follow, kinda like the opening scene with Trinity in The Matrix.
I'm not even gonna begin with the weapons and motorbikes.


The graphics(by Square Enix) are sharp, but not 'realistic' sharp. After all, the characters are patterened after the hexagonal entities in the game. realism, although excellently achieved, is not the real emphasis of the graphic construction of the movie, but it's loyalty to the FF story. Unlike Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is strictly the FF we all knew and played till our fingers bled. If i were a fan of the videogame I'm sure I'd love it much more than I already did.



Rocketboy's Rating: *** (3 out of 5)