Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

OK, so Advent Children made it into a limited theatrical run in Japanese theaters (and on the Internet) a week before the DVD hit retail, but that hardly counts. Sold out nearly everywhere on DVD/UMD in Tokyo, the public spoke with their dollars. Squenix has another feather in its cap. But this isn't just any old Final Fantasy movie. It gathers together the most widely beloved cast of characters the publisher has ever put together; the cast of Final Fantasy VII, as well as the core members of the creative team that brought them to life. Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Vincent Valentine, Barret, Cait Sith, Cid, Red XIII and Yuffie (among others) make their first significant return since the original PlayStation 1 game, while Tetsuya Nomura (character designer, director), Kazushige Nojima (scenario writer), Nobuo Uematsu (composer), Yusuke Naora (art director), and Yoshinori Kitase (producer) return to ensure this CG-movie-sequel-to-a-videogame stays on course. The result is 100% pure fan-service, and the loyal FFVII generation, many of whom were introduced to role-playing games by this seminal RPG, will not be disappointed.

That's not to say that Advent Children is perfect -- far from it. But what it does do is establish Tetsuya Nomura as an incredibly confident director, clearly capable of much more than merely designing characters for videogames. While this Nomura is a far cry from being a Kurosawa, he succeeds in creating a great Hollywood action film, free from physical restraints and the trappings that come with live actors and settings. Advent Children is a film seemingly without gravity, inertia (at times), or imperfection. Everyone's favorite band of brothers (and sisters) battle on spinning motorcycles that don't tip over, run up the sides of buildings, flip and fly through the air, and exist on a plane where Newton's laws don't exist. Things move anime-fast here, and that's a good thing. It takes some getting used to, to see photorealistic characters moving at speeds usually reserved for hand-drawn animation; speeds that no wireworks production (see: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) could ever match. But once you get used to seeing such sights (right around the time Tifa gets into a throwdown in a ruined cathedral) it's easier to try and absorb the story.

It's not much of a story, but it serves its greater purpose of watching stuff get blown up. The gist: Our hero Cloud has a massive case of survivor's guilt in the aftermath of Final Fantasy VII (the game), still laments the death of Aerith, and attempts to live out his life as a glorified bike messenger (Strife Delivery Service). OK, so there's the plot, and the sub-subplots of 1) the local kids afflicted with a sickness called "Geostigma," and 2) a post-apocalyptic nutcase named Kadaj who's got a "mother" thing going on for Jenova. If you're interested in Advent Children, you know all this by now. You know the names of every character in the movie who's not on the box cover (Zack, Reno, Rude, Denzel, Mari, Rufus, etc.), because you are sold. And that's one reason why it didn't make sense to bring this movie to theaters. While it may have won accolades at various international film festivals, Advent Children expects the viewer to be well-versed in the lore of Final Fantasy VII. It picks up right where the game left off, and the average viewer (i.e. your mom) who might not know the ins and outs of FFVII would be at a severe disadvantage trying to figure out what's going on.

Another problem with the movie, in strictly esoteric terms, is that it's painted in rather broad strokes. Maybe it's a Japanese thing, or maybe just a Nomura thing, but there are other visionary colors to paint in beyond angst and sweet regret. It's pretty obvious that Advent Children's very few quiet moments are supposed to resonate, but it feels amateurish. The overwrought dialogue, the prefab emotion, the soap-opera piano music that tinkles glowingly through diffuse lighting in the background; it's all a bit sappy. Then again, it's not like Advent Children feigns high drama, and it is aimed directly at fans of Final Fantasy VII. But even FFVII fans could cope with more than the three gears offered here: A) Bewildered angst, B) Neutral, C) Ass-kicking determination. The movie isn't ineffective, in fact it's quite effective. It would take a cynical heart not to be moved by the sentimentalities tossed about during Cloud's heart-to-heart with Aerith, but it's hard not to view those scenes as anything other than manipulative. You want to tug our heartstrings, Square, we can tell. Few characters from FFVII the game except Tifa and Vincent have any real impact here, relegated to mere, ahem, role players until movie's end. That's not to say this film doesn't work, though. It works alright. It's just easy to ignore the movie's faults in favor of its exhilarating editing and pace.

If Nomura knows anything, it's how to frame a shot. Characters are viewed from worms-eye view, heroes and villains glower menacingly just above their cowls, when someone fires a gun they do it with style. If someone is knocked for a loop, they land on their feet, cat-like, and in dramatic pose. Basically, everything that happens in this game happens cool. And everyone is beautiful; perfect almost. Cloud (who looks like Saving Private Ryan's Barry Pepper) has unbreakably perfect hair, Tifa is generously proportioned, Yuffie is as cutely jailbait as ever, and Vincent is the epitome of ominous cool. He's the Samuel L. Jackson of Advent Children. Some of the action in Advent Children is so ridiculous it's simply awesome. You wish Ghost in the Shell was this fun. Advent Children gives you some psychobabble, sure, but at least it's interrupted as often as possible with battles in churches, battles on motorcycles, battles against Bahamut, battles in the woods, battles on top of skyscrapers. It's a battlefest of battleistic proportions. The fights are creative too, with people's powers and abilities doled out in perfect syncopation with the settings (Vincent's arrival is among the most impressive scenes), with "Oooh! and "Ahhh!"-worthy scenes around every corner.

In the end, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children can be judged on so many different merits, both pro and con, but the bottom line is that it's thrilling entertainment for people who like Final Fantasy. It's fan service 101: Give the people what they want, and then give them some more. Like the Final Fantasy victory fanfare cell-phone tone on Loz's phone. Good stuff. The quality and clarity of the CG visuals is genuinely amazing, but the most convincing scenes are the ones where the fewest special effects are going off, simply because they're the least common. We won't spoil anything for you since the American version of the DVD doesn't hit the U.S. until December, but rest assured it ends on the right note. If Tetsuya Nomura ever decides to quit game development, there's no doubt he's got a future in this if he wants it. But the chances that he'd have such a rich pool of characters to drawn from every time is a slim one, and that's what makes Advent Children work. It's an amazing technical feat that Nomura's team have pulled off here, and an impressive first foray into the alien world of movie making. Coming from a team that's used to making CG cinemas less than five minutes long, Advent Children is a surprisingly auspicious debut. Here's hoping they do it again.

	DVD Features. The DVD itself is light on extra features (some trailers, a "Reminiscence of FFVVII" featureette reliving some moments from the PS1 game, and little else), unless you bought the Advent Pieces box set, in which case you get a truckload of stuff, including a PS1 playable "Perfect guide" which lets you examine 3D ship models, read facts and trivia about the game, etc. Obviously it's very good looking, being made digitally and direct to DVD. The sound is crystal clear and well-defined, but the soundtrack is hit or miss. Remade versions of tracks like One-Winged Angel sound fantastic, but the soap opera piano music has to go.