Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Reviewed By:   Andrew Kaplan

DVD (Double Disk) Sony Pictures

What it’s (basically) all about: In this sequel to the popular videogame, ex-SOLDIER Cloud Strife is trying to withdraw from his past, and the world.  However, the children of the devastated city of Midgard are suffering from a disease known as Geostigma.  The evil Kadaj and his brothers offer a cure for the plague, but they are really searching for the last remains of their “mother,” Jenova, an alien fallen to Earth whose tissue had been used to create the SOLDIERS of the video game.  A fierce battle ensues, climaxing with the revival of dead Sephiroth, a super-SOLDIER who was apparently the villain of the game.

Nitty Gritty: Presumably like the videogame, this film has a great deal of action, mostly without any blood or gore.  One of the female characters, Tifa, is pretty soundly beaten down in an early fight, but the film later features other female fighters who are more capable of holding their own.  One sequence, a motorcycle chase in a tunnel, does include some blood as characters are injured or killed, but this does not seem overdone or gratuitous.

Final Fantasy VII impresses mostly on a visual level.  Using computer generate imagery and motion-capture, the filmmakers capture the look of a highly-advanced video game.  The backgrounds and settings have a photorealistic quality to them, despite their more fantastic qualities, and the characters’ motions and expressions feel very natural.  However, the film still has a very stylized anime aesthetic that makes it feel more dynamic than, say, the earlier Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

The film does include a healthy amount of characterization, raising it above the level of being a mere video-game on the big screen.  However, while characters do demonstrate affection, and even love, towards one another, there is no nudity or sexual content.

The language in the film is fairly clean, although there are two divergences between the subtitles and the English dub.  At one point, a character exclaims, “Oh, no” in English, while the subtitles read, “Shit!”  At another, a character says, “Son of a bitch” in English, while the subtitles read, “You are dead!”

While the film does presume familiarity with the storyline and characters from the game, it is possible to understand the story without any previous knowledge.  However, many of the finer details will probably be lost.  (I say this as someone who had no previous experience with this story, and felt as if I was missing subtler references and connections.)  The first disk does include a featurette, “Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII,” which provides a rough summary of the game’s story.  While I still feel like I missed something, my appreciation of the movie would have been increased had I viewed this featurette first.

Other extras include:

Deleted scenes

Venice Film Festival footage (featuring a 20-minute version of the movie)

A lengthy making-of featurette

Trailers for Advent Children

Sneak peeks of upcoming Final Fantasy VII games

Survey says: This film has an MPAA rating of PG-13, and the game it is based on is rated T for teens.  Between a somewhat complex story and the violent—if relatively bloodless—action, this film should sit comfortably in a YA or adult collection.

Personal Ad: While a beauty to look at, with some excellent voice work from a cast that includes Rachel Leigh Cook and Christy Carlson Romano, I only wish the story had been more accessible for someone like me.  On the other hand, the number seven in the title was a fair clue that this was a series with some weight and history behind it, and it isn’t unreasonable for the filmmakers to expect the audience to put up with a bit of a learning curve.