Review of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Quite frankly, there is little to no story with this anime. And the argument you have to play the game is ludicrous. James Cameron has said that you don't shouldn't have to watch a sequel without any viewing the previous installment. Should Terminator 2 really not have had any plot and just leave it to the first movie for it? It doesn’t really advance Tifa and Cloud’s relationship either nor does it really develop the characters. Most the characters featured are just Cloud, Tifa, Reno, and the bald turk. Cloud just doesn't have the charisma to really carry the movie. And Sephiroth is still 100%delusional that Jenova is his mother and certain elements of the plot are of course predictable but on the other hand still leaves question. Hell, I didn't really care about Sephiroth anymore. I never get why they needed to bring him back.

I also didn't like the Geostigma angle. It was really a dumb plot device that was only selective. It really did nothing to effect Cloud's performances in the fight scene. And there’s no point to what the kids are doing rather than just having super speed and being puppets to Kadaj when possessed by him. The movie doesn't give me any reason why I should care about Denzel or Kadaj's useless henchmen more than Red XIII, Barrett, or Cid. The rest of the main cast just shows up at the resolution for the big fight at the end and that’s it. They really make no other use for the characters. Their presence was so useless that I felt the movie would have been the same without the rest of the cast.

Despite its convoluted attempt at a plot, the quality of the 3D art and animation cannot be denied, though in my opinion, I didn’t find it enough to make up for any of the bad qualities. You already know by screen shots and previews that the CG is good. But moving on, I think the re-designing and refraining from more anime-esque design characteristics did help a lot to make the characters more realistic though the anime use of hair styles and colors are still present. Tifa has a whole new outfit. Instead of wearing a mid-drift and short shorts like she wore in the game, she now wears a pretty descent dress that makes her more like a legitimate warrior than a street gang member from Final Fight. Cloud’s outfit is of course slightly changed. He wears something like a trench coat but really not. He’s really wearing something capey, if that is all a word. And the villains look like emo kids. Hell, they are stupid emo kids that need to be killed in Mexico.

The praised fights that has been acclaimed for, I found repetitive and most of all, unoriginal. To me, saying that Advent Children has awesome fight scenes is like saying the IrateGamer has the most original catch phrases. It's pretty much a rip off of Matrix. Some scenes have some cliché’ shots like when that one guy finished off Tifa at the church. I just found the final fight scene Matrix Revolutions with swords and I thought it went unreasonably and ridiculously over the top in like in the movie of Prince of Tennis, Futari no Samurai when Ryoma and Ryoga have their tennis bout. Though not at the same drastic level of stupidity.

It’s also cool they brought in the materia feature but I didn’t think was used properly enough. It is also nice we do get to see the limit break techniques. It was really cool when villains summoned I believe Bahamut from another game. I haven’t played the game in awhile so my knowledge of the summons is kind of rusty. I thought the design was awesome and was really breathtaking, but the actual fight and the way they beat him by the cast pushing up Cloud into the air for more boost was just, a huge WTF moment to me. Granted the art and animation is excellent in it’s own right, like the plot, there is too much that is still unexplained and elaborated. When the hell did they get semi-aerial abilities in this? Some people may think its cool and I will agree for visuals it is, but it kind of leaves too many questions.You do hear the argument you never apply physics in anime, but at least Dragon Ball, Macross, and Gundam have foundational principles in relation to their physics that make the action easier to follow and understand.

They got the composer from the games back to do this one and a majority of the songs you hear from the game, you’ll also hear in this movie. Especially the final song (One Winged Angel) when you fight Sephiroth int he end of the game. The music is well appropriately placed and sets the atmosphere very well. So I got nothing much to say on the music rather than that and I think it was a great idea for Square to do that. However, my main emphasis will be the voice acting in both the Japanese and English dub. Personally, I think the dub sucks. Granted they got some big names like Rachel Leigh Cook and Steven Blum to do the characters, but they weren’t really good. I don’t think Steven Blum as Vincent Valentine sounded natural and too scratchy and just didn’t really match his character like how I didn‘t think he did GTO very well. I just feel that this casting gives me the notion along with Blum's selection to play GTO and Wolverine that the fan base and industry of North American voice acting overrates him big time just because he was awesome as Spike in Cowboy Bebop. Yeah, he was great in that role, but doesn't meant he'd be great in others. The delivery of the lines in English are just broken. Rufus talks like he’s William Shatner, and Sephiroth has little to no charisma in his voice. The actors aren’t really that dynamic in English..

The Japanese version I thought was ok. Toshiyuki Morikawa (who also plays Griffith in Berserk and Vorg in Hajime no Ippo) as Sephiroth was ok. I just think Miki Shin’ichiro who has played Sephiroth in other games did a much better job. He had that dynamic delivery I’m looking for and a distinct able charisma. Keiji Fujiwara as Reno was excellent by portraying a character who is really laid back and informal. Though the Japanese version is much better, or so you would expect, it’s not really the best acting I heard in anime granted that the Japanese track has hired a few big name seiyuus. I think Cloud's voice was good, but I just don't think his personality gives him any charisma to really carry the movie as I said earlier.

In the words of the great Yoshiyuki Tomino, “People go to the movies today to see movement more than story, and then you end up with something like the third episode of The Matrix.” When it comes to this anime, truer words can never be spoken. For my personal standards of when I want to watch something, I like to see an engaging story. Especially in the case of Final Fantasy. I think Square could have done this, but they didn’t. I say personal enjoyment of this anime is probably based more on your own personal expectations between story and/or animation itself. But I don’t think Square’s reasons are enough to justify a terrible plot with no point.