Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children (Animated) (DVD)

...big fans of video games, Final Fantasy: Advent Children is based upon Final Fantasy VII, one of the games as a part of an RPG (Role Playing Game) series by Japanese games designers, Squaresoft.

WHAT IS FINAL FANTASY?
Before I start telling you all about the movie, it's perhaps a good idea to explain to you all just what Final Fantasy, as a whole, is. Starting in 1987, the brand name of Final Fantasy (shorted to simply 'FF' ...
...fair to say that each Final Fantasy has its own set of characters and storylines, they are all based around the genre of epic fantasies and magic, and all follow the basic narrative of good vs evil. As a video gamer, you naturally play as the good guys, facing obstacles that not only threaten your own existence but others around you and even the world.

The games also have the sub-genre of sci-fi because of the sometimes 'unrealistic' ... more

For those of you who aren't big fans of video games, Final Fantasy: Advent Children is based upon Final Fantasy VII, one of the games as a part of an RPG (Role Playing Game) series by Japanese games designers, Squaresoft.

WHAT IS FINAL FANTASY?
Before I start telling you all about the movie, it's perhaps a good idea to explain to you all just what Final Fantasy, as a whole, is. Starting in 1987, the brand name of Final Fantasy (shorted to simply 'FF' by many of the fans) has since evolved from more than just role playing video games into animated motion pictures and other merchandise.

Whilst it is fair to say that each Final Fantasy has its own set of characters and storylines, they are all based around the genre of epic fantasies and magic, and all follow the basic narrative of good vs evil. As a video gamer, you naturally play as the good guys, facing obstacles that not only threaten your own existence but others around you and even the world.

The games also have the sub-genre of sci-fi because of the sometimes 'unrealistic' appearances of the characters and the elements of magic and 'guardian forces'. These guardian forces are mystical creatures which act as an aide to the characters during battles scenes, which are a common occurrence throughout the video game and movie alike. Holding powers involving forces of nature, the GF's do pop up on odd occasions here but are definitely more of a factor in the games. However, just in case you do purchase this film and wonder exactly what the large, roaring creatures are, they are indeed Guardian Forces or enemies of a similar nature.

In terms of this, the seventh game in the series is often regarded as the finest Final Fantasy game ever made, largely due to it's concoction of then modern technology and graphics, a realistic yet still whimsical storyline (including what many regard as the most heartbreaking scene in video game history - more on that later on) and playability factor.

On that reckoning, it may shock you to learn that I watched the film continuation of FF7 without as much picking up the joy pad to play the original game for the Playstation 1. The reason I got this DVD was because I was familiar with the basic storyline (thanks to a lot of background information from my brother) which was aided significantly with a rather handy extra on the DVD. I had however played Final Fantasy VIII, the next video game in the series, so was familiar with the basic principals that both Final Fantasy games as a whole and what this movie, Advent Children, had to offer. With that in mind, I was good to go and start watching the computer animated film.

BASIC PLOT OUTLINE OF FINAL FANTASY VII (may contain a couple of spoilers)
Final Fantasy VII focused for the most part on the life of Cloud Strife. In himself, he could be described as an almost tragic hero, with a distorted, perplexing past that is alluded to throughout the movie. Claiming to be a former mercenary with powerful corporation Shinra, when you first meet him in the video game, he is working with AVALANCE, a group against the principals of Shinra. The corporation of Shinra's dream is to take over the world with its use of energy draining sources, a topic which is discussed in a little amount of depth during the movie. AVALANCE are a group created to try and stop them in their evil doings.

Every person within the world of Gaia (simply translating as 'the planet) has a certain amount of energy which, once that person dies, returns to the 'lifestream'. The lifestream is the blood of the planet, and the very soul which is given to people before birth and in death right up until the moment they die. This energy is then transferred back to the planet at death (pretty grim, huh?). However, due to Shinra's involvement, this energy becomes negative and threatens the lives of many with diseases and various illnesses.

Materia becomes another part of the game which is known in the movie. Materia are little, energized crystals that allow a person to use magic, and are associated with the lifestream via knowledge gained throughout its life span.

Throughout the course of the game, the battle is primarily between AVALANCE (the good guys featuring the protagonist Cloud) and the evil Shinra. This all escalates after the main heroine - Aeris Gainsborough - is killed by former SOLDIER worker, Sephiroth who is the main antagonist of the piece. This scene in the video game is one of the most heartbreaking in spite of the almost cheery music; Aeris is portrayed as the most honest, sweetest woman who ever lived which makes her being literally stabbed in the back so appalling. SOLDIER are a group that Cloud formerly belonged to who are basically the opposite of AVALANCE and are the elite workers for Shinra.

The SOLDIERS, however, have been genetically modified to make them stronger and tougher. Sephiroth, once upon a time, was the best SOLDIER out of all of them, and the one everyone aspired to be like. However, somewhere along the line, his nature turned even more evil and was the start of something much more sinister set to occur in the world...

Whilst I hope this very brief introduction is of some use to you, there is an extra on the DVD set that is very helpful. More on that a little later on.

THE MOVIE (again, there may be some spoilers here)
Set two years after the somewhat confusing conclusion of Final Fantasy VII (in the sense that very little is in fact resolved), 'Advent Children' basically picks up where the game left off. The world, in particular the country of Midgar where most of the action takes place, is recovering from the devastation of disease, and an attack by a meteor.

The character of Cloud Strife has now, bizarrely enough, set up his own delivery service with one of the other female admirers from the original video game, Tifa Lockhart. Whilst there does seem to be a certain amount of a 'love triangle' with the now deceased Aeris, that is neither confirmed nor denied explicitly either in the game or here. Anyway, Cloud is now away from the life he used to lead and seems to be almost happy about it. Now him and Tifa are the adoptive parents of two children, Denzel and Marlene, it would seem that they are to play one big happy family - big mistake. Cloud is in fact still desperately sad about the death of his 'friend' Aeris, despite there being very little he could have done to prevent her passing. However, the way in which the storyline has been written, the narrative goes that the old hero is looking at one last shot of retribution, despite original deliberation and indecisiveness and a lot of persuasion from friends and higher authorities.

I actually found this deliberation to be the most provocative and thorough part of the whole movie; even as someone who had never played the video game, I found myself being genuinely caught up in Cloud's emotions. The way in which the narrative moved proved to be a little bit slow in the beginning but not to the point where nothing at all was going on. I thought that most of the dialogue here was captivating and fairly easy to understand, even for a novice like me. However, without the aide of the Final Fantasy VII video game recap on the first disk, I may have been at even more of a loss to know exactly what was going on.

As some of you may be aware of from the video game, there is a force called Jenova which is of heavy focus during the film. Jenova is basically a collection of cells, seen to be like an alien life form, that is described on many occasions as 'Mother' by many of the sub characters during the movie. The reason for Jenova being called Mother is due to the fact that some of its cells were implanted into the SOLDIERS, as a way to make them more powerful. It is later revealed that Jenova is controlled by Sephiroth - confusing huh? That's why it is a good idea to have at least a little bit of an understanding of the game beforehand, so that issues like this are easier to comprehend.

By the middle of the film, the plot started to thicken nicely. Cloud's venture was heightened to the greater extent of seeing illusions of the dead Aeris. The dream like sequences played out very well on screen, being both visually and emotionally effective. I did feel that these scenes were beneficial to people who were both familiar and unfamiliar with the video game; you really got a sense of the tragic loss that as a character Aeris was. The focus on the character of Cloud I thought helped the viewer to really understand is own feelings of bereavement and why he perhaps doesn't want to participate in battles anymore.

The way in which Aeris died is recapped very early on into the story and, even thought I wasn't overly familiar with the characters, I couldn't help but feel saddened by the character's loss. The moments when Aeris is acting as almost a Spirit Guide to Cloud during the game are also amongst some of the most successful being both emotionally intriguing and adding to the sense of good vs evil throughout the movie.

Yet, the battle scenes that are in the game are both impressive but very drawn out. At first, they are a rather cool illusion to the Matrix, being shot in bullet time, where the camera slows down so you get the full effect of a certain move or action. Visually, with the exceptional computer animated graphics, the fight scenes are stunning. However, at some points there is a lack of dialogue and instead of the battles moving the plot on to a greater degree, I actually found that it was slowing the whole storytelling process down and making it perhaps a little dull.

During the long winded battle scenes, at points I did begin to lose concentration. Due to the magical style plots and world anyway, it is a movie where you need to be really prepared to watch and listen to comprehensively to fully understand what is going on. Even then, this isn't guaranteed and I did find my mind wondering to other thoughts. As a results, when everything had calmed down a little, I found myself having to rewind the clips several times so that I could catch up on some of the parts that I kind of skipped.

By the middle towards the end of the film, the plot in a way does seem to waver quite significantly with battles in one form or another taking over. Many of the characters from the original game make an appearance which I guess was a way to give the previous fans a nostalgic 'reunion' type moment and to also entice people, like myself, who have yet to play the game to do so but with a greater understanding of who the characters are. However, I wasn't particularly fond of this factor as it felt like many of the characters were there simply for the sake of it. I also felt it took away from the protagonist's plight quite drastically, which was a shame as that was the part I was most enjoying.

The ending, in my mind, was disappointing. After such a strong first hour of action and intriguing narrative, I felt that the battle scenes lasted far too long and when the ending came, it was all a little bit too abrupt and I was left wondering if it had actually ended or not. I did though like the way in which the whole story linked back to Aeris; from what I've been told, she is one of the most significant characters in Final Fantasy's illustrious history. It's an ending in my view which does make you as a viewer wanting more; I wish that throughout the story there had been a greater emphasis on plot and character development. None the less, the ending is bitter sweet and holding still a lot to the imagination, which I personally liked although I could understand it if many fans would want a more concrete ending.

EXTRAS
One of the things that when I did pick up the DVD that I liked about it was the fact it was a two disk set. For the ridiculous price I bought it for (more on that in a few moments) I felt that a double disk set was very good and that there was a considerable amount of extras available on here.

On the first disk, there has been the extra that has been of the most use to me; the 'Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII'. Lasting approximately 25 minutes, I was highly impressed by the detail that this feature goes into, despite the fact that the game would take you many months to complete if attempted. It was a good way for someone like me to get a greater grasp of the characters and original plot and to help me to get the general gist of things before watching the movie. I also liked the fact that it was a story within a story, with some new footage being incorporated where Cloud is talking to various members of AVALANCE on his mobile phone.

Thinking that two disks would mean that the second disk would be crammed full of interesting yet meticulous extras, I did feel slightly disappointed once I loaded up the disk. At a glance, I was excited by the prospect of many more scenes that didn't quite make it onto the film. However, the fact that they were all in Japanese took away from all of that. I found myself (even with the subtitles) being distracted quite significantly by the voiceovers which took the edge away from the scenes as a whole.

The rest of the extras on the second disk followed a very similar, dull format. The Making of Advent Children didn't actually come across as having anything to do with the production side of things and droned on for what seemed like forever.

Then there was a case of the trailers. Usually, I do like to see film trailers and they are basically, a 'mini movie' within themselves. However, all of them looked exactly the same. Bearing in mind that there were over half a dozen of these, that isn't necessarily a good thing and it did come across as being very much a case of throwing them onto the DVD just to make up the set.

ARTWORK AND ONSCREEN PRESENTATION
In terms of the artwork and the graphics for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, I can't fault the producers at all. The realism of the characters and surroundings is remarkable and something that should be praised highly. The detailing on the facial expressions is exceptional and really thorough and, if you are interested in the animation side of films, than that should be a reason to get this DVD alone.

The cover design incorporates many elements of the film, in particular the sci-fi sub-genre and the contrast of the main characters; Cloud and Sephiroth. Again, the design work once you play the DVD is fantastic and a lot of patients and detailing has gone into making the style of this DVD spectacular.

I do, however, have a few issues when it comes to actually attempting to play the DVD. Whilst it is good that there are scene selection options, when I used it, I found that the images all looked a bit too similar so it was slightly more difficult than expected to find the last sequence.

Also, on the extras disk, when I was trying to include subtitles so that I could try and understand the deleted scenes extras, I found that no matter which method I tried, I could not select the subtitles feature. Whether it is just me and my slightly poor technology skills or not, it was a little frustrating to find how to turn them on so I had to resort to getting up - out of my seat - to find the DVD remote. Shock, horror!

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
When I purchased my copy of the DVD, I was thrilled that it was only £4 in my local Asda supermarket. It was a real bargain considering that it was a double disk DVD set and in comparison to some of the prices you can get a copy for on the net, it was more than reasonable:

Play.com - £5.00 (free delivery)
Zavvi - £20.00 (free delivery)
HMV.co.uk - £5.99 (free delivery)
Amazon.co.uk - £4.98 (eligible for supersaver delivery)
DVD.co.uk - £5.95 (free delivery)

As you can see, prices do vary from site to site so it is worth checking out before buying.

OVERALL
Overall, whilst I did enjoy for the most part watching this film, I found that by the end of it, I was at a loss to understand exactly which direction the plot was heading in. The graphics were absolutely stunning and definitely the most enjoyable element of the film and the voice acting in itself being strong enough to carry what plot and character development there was through.

Due to the lack of character and storyline development however, I think that has to stop this film from being more enjoyable to watch. After such a strong opener, I was expecting that the characters were to be a more solid part of the film and, whilst they were to some extent, I felt slightly cheated by the amount of time spent on the battle scenes. They did drag on for quite a bit and, whilst they were visually stunning, it did get to the point where I wanted the plot to thicken and to move on, emotionally.

Whether this film will stand the test of time of being one of my all time favourites is not in much doubt. I wouldn't say that it is anywhere near the top end of the list at the moment. Yet, it is a film that I do want to watch again due to feeling that I may understand it all a bit better if I did so and one that should be commemorated alone for it's stunning graphics and provocative storyline, still within in the context of good against evil.

QUICK STATS:
Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Release year: 2005
Age Certificate: PG - which is about fitting as none of the battle scenes get too violent, in the case that there is no blood or what not, and there is no fowl language.
Subtitles?: Yes
Website: www.sphe.co.uk 

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