Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children

Hello everyone. As you can see, I'll will write a summary/review on Final Fantasy 7 Advent children. Thats right people, its the FF7 movie we've all been waiting for years. And note that there will be major spoilers, so read on only if you really want to.
The movie starts off with the ending of the FF7 game, as in the descendents of Red XIII running onto a mountain, looking at what used to be Midgard. Then it goes back 498 years, which I believe is 2 years after the game. What you see there is the crater at the north pole. A Shinra chopper flew into it, hear some talking and gun shots, then the chopper flys away from it. As to who is piloting the chopper, I'll let the pictures answer that.



Now we have Malin (the girl Bullet/Barret takes care of) giving us a brief summary on what happened in the game, from the background of Shinra company to the death of Aerith and the whole life stream thing. She also tells us that a unknown disease emerges out of no where in the past two years, taking the lifes of many people. And it seems a large portion of the ones infected by the disease are children. The next few minutes gives the viewers a good look at what Tifa looks like. And to be honest, she looks damn good.

On to action we go. Both Cloud and the trio of villains are introduced here. For those who are curious, the one with the katana is Kadaj, the one with guns is Razoo, and the other one is Loz. and they head straight into action. What we got here is a really unrealistic yet cool looking fight involving bikes, swords, guns, and monsters. Things settles down after a few minutes of intense action and non stop "where is mother" questions from the trio. Cloud goes on to meet a certain someone accompanied by 2 members of Turks. After some talking, that mysterious man got a visit from one of the trio.

With 10+ minutes of talking in the books, its time to go back to action. Tifa and Malin hangs out at the church and encounters Loz. Of course, they engage in battle, beating the she*t out of each other. One thing worth noting here is that the "victory song" makes an appearance here.

Now on to some kidnapping (or should I say mind control) action by the pretty boy trio. Cloud chases after them and we are treated to another intense fight. It all came to a halt when a man with red cape who uses a gun interferes.

Little chit chat takes place then the scene cuts to the villains summoning monsters to attack everyone on the street of Midgard. They are later joined by a certain materia summoned beast, wreaking more havoc. Just when it seems its hopeless, everyone shows up. Yes, I mean everyone. They all proceed to fight the summon and destroys lots of building in the process :)

OK, time for more bike actions. Kadaj took "mother" and ran off. Cloud chases him on his bike. The other two baddies follows. That gives us another insanely unrealistic road rage. After lots of explosions (which involves a rather fun scene with the Turks) Cloud caught up to Kadaj. One on one sword fight! The music! Jenova theme!

Most of you should be able to guess what happens next, but just in case, I'll have to give you guys a final major major spoiler warning. So read on at your own risk.


Cloud defeats Kadaj, he then grabs "mother" and fuses with it. A long katana, long silver hair, and that theme! Who can it be! Its none other than Sephiroth! Its time for one last sword fight. One crazy one to boot. The two of them jump/fly around the city accompanied by chunks of building getting blown up and sliced in half. Of course, Cloud emerges as the victor and everyone is happy.


The End

The overall story is rather disappointing. Before watching the movie, I figure they will put more time and focus on the whole Jenova story as well as the background of the Villains. Instead, this movie is used to further Develop Clouds character, which seems somewhat redundant since he already dealt with his past and decides to live on at the end of the game. Jenova is basically there to give them an excuse to bring back Sephiroth and the trio are simply past on as clones of Sephi, giving us no plot twist or any surprise at all. The rest of the crew are somewhat useless as well. You could remove them from the movie and not affect the story, well, other than Vincent and the Turks. In a sense, the structure of this movie is really similar to Matrix Reloaded where they had a pattern of 10-15 mins talking, some action, back to talking, on to action, etc....everything just feels forced together. So, the main attractions of this film is basically the graphics and the action. To be honest, I really didn't want the movie to turn out this way especially when the original story was so deep and interesting. Just imagine this being a live action movie and you'll realize how pathetic it is. In short, this film is one big fan service video, with some stunning graphic and action that is.
For those who have played the game, you should have lots of fun watching this movie. Of course the characters are great to watch, but the little details they put in should satisfy your expectations as well. What I mean is the background and the music. Most events takes place at certain location from the game, such as the crater, the hotel right outside of Midgard, the church etc...And a good portion of the music (mostly battle themes) are remix of the ones from the game, which is really neat.

I give this movie 7 Rickstars out of 10. I really want to give it a higher score, but the story gave me no choice.