Movie Review: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete
Final Fantasy VII is one of the most celebrated JRPGs of all time. It is even credited by most as the game that popularized the genre outside of Japan. Though there are varying opinions on how the gameplay actually stacks up against other JRPGs, few can dispute the impact the game had. Cutting to the chase, making any kind of sequel was considered “a big deal”.
Square knew this, of course, and dumped in a lot of money to make this movie as eye-poppingly gorgeous as possible. Even though the movie is now quite a few years old, the CGI is still impressive to look at. On top of that, the soundtrack is fantastic. But what of the story?
I can best describe this movie’s story as “unnecessary”. It’s not particularly engaging, which I find quite in contrast with the game, and often feels like a strange and convoluted vehicle to the next over-the-top fight scene. The movie consists of shameless fan service, using the “plot” as a way to show off hi-res reimaginings of beloved characters.
Complete boasts an extra twenty-six minutes of footage. For some, this is the selling point. Honestly, I prefer the movie without the extra footage and I’ll tell you why. Having additional scenes actually helped to alleviate some of the confusion in the film’s story, but unfortunately I felt that this killed the pacing. Adding an extra quarter of a movie turns the whole thing into a much slower experience. When I watch a really interesting film (like The Dark Knight, which was almost a half hour longer than Advent Children Complete), I don’t even notice the amount of time passing. Advent Children Complete, however, now feels like it drags on. What it all comes down to is that even with the extra scenes making the story more understandable, I still don’t find it to be a very enjoyable story and it just lengthens the time between the next action-packed scene.
There were also some added and modified scenes that I just didn’t like. First, we have an added scene with Cloud and Marlene where she mentions she knows Cloud has been searching for a cure for Denzel, a diseased orphan boy that lives with them. She mentions that she found this out because Cloud doesn’t keep his desk clean enough. Call me crazy, but I don’t think Cloud is really known for his brains. When did he start studying medicine? My guess, the “paperwork” Marlene found looked something like this:
Cloud's "paperwork"
On to the modified scenes. Fans of Cid will be glad to know he now does literally nothing when he first arrives during the Sin Bahamut fight. Sorry Cid, looks like Tifa and Cloud have to take over what little action the original movie gave you. Here’s another. Remember the motorcycle chase scene where Loz throws a giant bike with his thighs? Well, that whole scene wasn’t nearly ridiculous enough. Thankfully Sqaure has heard our complaints of the action being too plausible. We now get to see Yazoo (a candidate for greatest name ever) fly his bike through the doors of a helicopter, destroying its throttle on his way out.
To anybody that holds this movie as “sacred”, please remember that this is one man’s opinion and should in no way affect your love of the movie. I do have to say the added dirt effects are a nice touch and I enjoy being able to watch it with the clarity that blu-ray provides, but I wish I had the shorter version of the movie instead. If you’ve never seen it before, you should watch it at least once for the ridiculous fight scenes and amazing soundtrack, even if you don’t have any interest in Final Fantasy, though I’d recommend the original version instead of Complete.
Tags: Advent Children Complete, blueray, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, Movie Review
This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Movies and Shows, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I agree. I was pretty bored through most of this version. The story is on the dumb side and the villains (the only new characters besides the kids) are uninteresting.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:For anybody that hasn’t seen it:
I know 2 people who liked the new version much better, 2 people that didn’t like it as much, and one person that was neutral. You very well might have the opposite opinion and there’s nothing wrong with that.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Ciandi "Tragedienne" Stephens says:Well, first, I totally agree with the issue of pacing.
If you’re going to sacrifice dramatic/thematic ‘oomph’ (pacing, significance, etc) for plot clarity…you’d better have a fantastic plot.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Advent Children. I think it is good for both the film and gaming industry that we have it as an example of what can be done with the technology and I still like this film more than most ‘hi-res’ CG movies (IE, Beowulf).
When I first heard they were re-releasing AC, my first thought was ‘Great, Squeenix squeezing more money out of the same game’ but I have to say that I was at least gratified to see that SIGNIFICANT changes were made, so that it was not simply a repackaging. It is, in fact, a different experience.
The problem, of course, is that it is not necessarily a BETTER experience.
Some of the line-changes I was disappointed in because I had liked the previous cut. Many times, like Jesse said, the movie DRAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGS.
There were some positive elements. When I first saw AC, I could not determine why geostigma was apparently a big deal. It is barely covered and there is no sense of urgency in the audience to match that of the characters. The explanation in Complete does give a better idea, and I found myself more sympathetic to the characters. The introduction of Denzel and why I should theoretically care about him was both helpful and useless at the same time.
Having more of Tifa was nice, though losing Cid’s role in the Bahamut fight was a bit unfair it seemed.
My favorite addition was blood during the SephirothXCloud fight. I’m still torn on which version I prefer, but I certainly enjoyed Complete’s rendition.
I do own a copy now, mostly because I’m the only one in my group with a blu-ray player. But if someone were to ask me, I would say this version is worth seeing once, but if you’re a fan, buy the original edit instead.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:Actually seeing Geostigma and the introduction of Denzel were definitely helping my ability to follow the story.
BUT!!… one of the things that really bugged me is how during the original Cloud vs Sepheroth battle the music was written to match the action perfectly, but in the new version the same music accompanied newly choreographed action and there were some distinct audio cues that were completely stripped of their effect as a result. To me that feels like a slap in the face to the music director.