Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Films based on games, by and large, are rubbish; Super Mario Bros., for instance, or Street Fighter to name but two. A few years back, Square tried to capitalise on the popularity of the Final Fantasy franchise of games with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a feature-length CGI cut-scene that, while looking great and feeling fit, was, sadly, not very good.
Despite this, we have here another Final Fantasy film, this time a direct sequel to the seventh Final Fantasy game. I have fond memories of Final Fantasy VII, having played it twice and clocked up around 100 hours of play time, and ebayed my copy only a few weeks ago which I now regret because Advent Children has brought my finely-honed nostalgia sense crashing to its knees and weeping.
This film is a gift to the fans. If you never played Final Fantasy VII then you may still enjoy Advent Children — it has some gob-smacking CGI action sequences — but you just won’t appreciate it on the same level. You won’t appreciate it when Barret, Yuffie, Cid et al turn up to fight the freshly-summoned Bahamut. You won’t appreciate it when Sephiroth returns. You won’t appreciate seeing Aeris. You won’t appreciate the use of the original Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack. You certainly won’t appreciate it when a character has Cloud’s triumphant “dadadadaa daaa daaa da DA-DAA!” riff as their mobile phone ringtone. This film is pure, unadulterated, 100% fanwank. I loved it.
I…won’t be just a memory.
On a purely intellectual level, this film is terrible. The plot is incoherent and relies entirely upon you knowing intimately the plot of the game (and even then it doesn’t make much sense). The dialog is poor and the action sequences are ridiculous and the CGI characters often leaden and emotionless. But on an emotional level it’s utterly engaging and had me grinning like a loon — look, it’s Cloud, and he has SIX SWORDS! Look, it’s Barret and he has a BIG GUN! Look, it’s Rude and Reno and they LOOK LIKE I REMEMBER! And so it goes on.
So if you don’t know the game (or do know the game but didn’t like it — Thom, I’m looking at you here) then you might enjoy parts of this film but probably not really get it. But if you do know the game and it featured heavily in your gaming life, then you must see this film. Tycho of Penny Arcade summed this up perfectly with this Fanboy Warning:
“This film contains scenes that may be totally fucking awesome. Your favorite characters may be rendered in extreme detail as they take part in mind-blowing battles set in familiar locales. Futuristic scabbard/motorcycles might be depicted in a way that makes them appear sweet.”
He’s right, you know.
I thought this movie was Awesome.. I actually liked the plot.. I actually liked the dialogue… I just loved this movie all around. Although I don’t get what Aerith is doing back or Zack, but I still liked the movie.
Maybe emotionally I get attached to characters that end up dying in the end, because my favorite characters in this movie were in fact Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. I just loved this movie all around. (Accept the fact my favorite characters died off)
Final Fantasy: Advent Children was deffinately a fanboy’s (or girl’s) dream come true. The music, the action and the story together brought me to cry tears of joy.
I had only played through the first disc of the game (actually, not even that much), but through friends and walkthrough guides, I understand AC’s story better than most… And it was awesome.
Throughout the movie, some things you see happen will make you think, “No way. They can’t do that!” But you have to keep in mind… That the characters in this movie are based on the characters in the game… Which by the end of the game, have to be pretty darn strong. (lvl 99, possibly…)… Just thought I’d say that.
Lol. Now I’m rambling.
Awesome movie.
Awesome music.
Tears of joy.
Hey, just doin some web-searching on Advent Children and stumbled across your site here, and I have to agree with everyone, the movie was AWESOME! I loved every second of it and watch it over and over and over and get the same satisfaction as I did the first time. Everything with it was perfect!
As reported by Eurogamer, this film is due to be released — in Europe, at least — around April. Though I imagine anyone who wanted to see it will have already downloaded it by now. Voice work will feature the likes of Jessica Alba, oddly. I hope there’s an option to retain Japanese speech with English subtitles — I might even buy it if there is.
This movie was amazing. Granted, I’ve watched it on a downloaded version translated by some guy named Hiro (I love you, man) so it wasn’t perfect but… Oh. My. God.
Your brain can’t keep up with how amazing this movie is. There is just too much.
FF7 rules, and FF7 Advent Children just made it better.
Looooooooovvvvvve
I’ve just watched a bit of the English-language version – awful, really awful. The voice acting is the sort of quality I’d expect to find in a Mega-CD FMV game.
Fortunately the DVD retains the Japanese dialogue with English subtitles, so I’ll stick with that.
advent children was without doubt the best cg movie i have ever been witness to, the level of rendering for active subjects was unbelievable, the motorcycles…wow.
sadly a lot of the plot, mainly due to bad subs. was lost on me as i have no interest in the game, i do have a great interest in the artwork portrayed in the two final fantasy movies, and i’m trying to collect all music videos of same. all in all a fantastic project, which i hope won’t be final
this movie obviously doesnt get the respect it deserves. [Its F*** awsome] ive beat the game 3 times now with everything to a near perfection the third time and i still love it. most people who probably watched it are NOOBS to the whole final fantasy thing but if the whole world played it at least once, theres no doubt this would be the BEST game in the world