Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children
Giving the fans what they want

// The skinny: Two years after the events of the video game, a deadly disease runs rampant in Midgar. A gang of Sephiroth clones searches for Jenova in order to bring about a re-unification and resurrection.

// Review: The key phrase here is "fan service." The reason why this enormously budgeted CGI film did not have a theatrical release was because it targeted a very selective audience of those who played the game and loved it. There is very little in the way of plot and the movie depends heavily on you knowing all of the characters and being deeply familiar with the story. There was also a 25 minute OVA (FFVII: Last Order) that took place before the events of the game that sets up the movie well. But if you haven't played the game since 1997 like me, or if you have no experience with FFVII, all is not lost. This summary will get you up to speed on everything you need to know to fully understand and enjoy this gorgeous movie.

/ Final Fantasy Spirits Within (2001) was a colossal $127M failure that Square Enix learned from. The tree hugging heavy storyline and attempt to go mainstream is dropped and is replaced by pure action and FFVII game homages focused squarely at all of the fanboys (400,000 copies sold in Japan in week 1 alone).

/ This movie is absolutely visually stunning. It's not just the top shelf CGI, but every camera angle is taken from worm's eye to bird's eye, and the frenetic battle sequences are always stylish. All physics and gravity as you know them are discarded, and the action and feats are ridiculously over the top, but it doesn't really matter once you just accept it and enjoy the ride.

/ The movie concentrates on Cloud and Tifa. Most of the old characters appear in little more than a cameo and I'm surprised they actually got veterans to voice the dozen or so words they each get. Cloud's character model is your typical anime hero meterosexual with his impossibly perfect hair and plucked eyebrows (and also happens to be the spitting image of Barry Pepper). And Tifa is more generously endowed than the Smithsonian. The whole tortured soul interplay Cloud has with the spirit of the murdered Aeris is shameless emotional pandering to the fanboys who spent dozens of hours trying to revive her in the PS1 video game.

// Wrap up: A must watch for fans of the groundbreaking RPG. For those who aren't, read the summary and prepared to be wowed.

Entertainment rating: 3