Final Fantasy Advent Children

Most of you are probably wondering how the living hell I got a hold of FF:AC earlier than the release date. That's a secret to everybody, I have my connections. However, because of this, I felt the need to review it, of course, and decided to type this, yes, as I watch the movie.

Final Fantasy Advent Childeren is first and foremost BEAUTIFUL. The whole movie looks real- there's nothing in this movie that looks fake at all. Hundreds of Midgard citizens move around as an exciting motorcycle chase occurs, and not for two seconds do I think "Wow, that's fake". Hell, I'm gonna see if I can trick my friends into thinking this is REAL. This is what Sci-Fi should look like, period. Lighting effects, cloth, hair, shiny s***, reminisces of the old game design, everything's here... and in beautiful 3D, not that psuedo 3D s*** from the game.



As well, I have to say the music is good, but not memorable. You can tell they remixed the original game music a little bit (Especially One Wing Angel, but I won't explain WHY), it still isnt as impressive as FF7 itself. However, the sounds and voices are spot on (That isnt hard, I listened to it in the original, unedited Japanese, so it's not got the dubbing issues most movies have). The voices fir the characters well enough- I really didn't sit there and see if the voices matched what I thought they would be in FF7, because I'm not that anal, but expect some FF dorks to at some point and time.

The story, without giving up any secrets, is as follows. Cloud and Tifa work at the Strife Delivery Agency, living with orphans and A KID I WILL NOT DIVULGE UPON HIS ORIGIN. All the characters, from Cloud, Barret, Tifa, to Yuffie and Cait Sith are here, basically everyone who survived (Duh). Shinra is trying to, and I quote from my own halfass translation, "Repair the damages they caused" to the world by sucking up the Life Energy of the planet, and some shady characters are looking for Jenova. That's all I can say about this, being as I don't want to spoil some of the "HOLY SHIT" moments in the movie.



The movie is action packed. I've never seen a movie with less talking and more kicking ass. This is partially because the movie doesn't need much dialogue, obviously all rabid FF fans want nowadays is some kickass visuals with great art and something to make them relive those FF7 days when we played on our s***ty PS1s and drooled over games like Metal Gear Solid. Let me be honest. This movie almost has nothing BUT action. You are lead to somewhat sympathize with the bad AND good guys, which is a nice change, but most of the time, they're kicking each other's ass. While this somewhat makes the movie somewhat of a disappointment that it's not a HUGE addition to the story, one would think if they did much more they would ruin the original plot, so....



The characters in this movie really needed to be fleshed out more. There's a reason this doesnt belong for theatrical release, and that's because you have to know what's going on BEFORE you watch this movie. You need to know about the Lifestream, all the characters, Aeris dying, Jenova, everything. This definately would be eye candy for the normal watcher, but I imagine the majority of what they'd end up doing is sitting there going "What the hell?".



I kinda was dissapointed with Cloud in general. Hardcore and interesting in the game, he's kinda a wierd bishounen-wuss mix (Well, it's the same thing), which makes him less interesting. Sure, during the action sequences he's the Cloud we all love, but he's kinda a pussy everywhere else. You can tell there was some gratuity to his opening scene (Well, it was ALL gratuitous), and overall, it needed work. I wanted a badass, not something for girls to go "AWW HE'S JUST LIKE IN FRUIT'S BASKET!!!!".



Little touches in this movie round it off for the five stars it gets. Tifa and Cloud both wear little red bands over their arm (Secret secret, people). The Shin-ra building is sometimes seen in the background. Tifa's House, Aeris' Church, and other periphany are all done like in the original game, which makes a FF geek like me happy. Of course some things, like the clothes the characters wear, are different, but overall, it fits the original game well enough. I especally love the English on the statue- "Rock-on in Midgard!!!". Wierd.

As a footnote to this movie, I'd like to say this is one hell of a lot better than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. A pat on the back to you, Squaresoft/Squareenix/whateverthehellyouarenow.



Overall, this movie gets 5 stars because it fits so well into the series. However, I seriously think Squaresoft needed to rethink this movie, no matter how much I like it. Let's be realistic for two seconds. This is just exploiting the franchise, like FFX-2 or Tactics Advance. This movie is definately not stand alone. So, if you played FF7 and want a great movie about it, go get this. If you're a general gamer looking for an action-packed movie, you might want to pick this up. If you're looking for the emotional movie of the year, don't get this. You won't even know who half the people are. (If I'm not mistaken, most characters don't introduce themselves, or are not even named in dialogue). So, with that in mind, choose wisely.

5 star(s) out of 5

Discuss More Other Games More Other Games