No, no, no, not at all. Advent Children continues the tale told in Final Fantasy VII, hence that whole ‘V’ and double ‘I’s thing in the title. Yes, that’s right Copernicus, you’ve cracked the code. Because I’m sure not all of you reading this are going to be familiar with the game (hell, I haven’t touched it in a good 7 years myself), here’s a mandatory recap on the game’s basic outline:

On some planet in some galaxy at some point in the time-space continuum in a place called Midgard (aka Earth if you’re a follower of Norse mythology… of which Japanese game designers are big into oddly enough), there’s a big evil corporation by the name of Shinra, run by a big chief fancy pants named Rufus (NOT voiced by George Carlin… though his trademark “fuck the man!” brand of humor would’ve fit this flick nicely) who has two bumbling comedy relief bodyguards by the names of Rude and Reno… you’d think the head of the planet’s biggest corporate beast could afford better help than a red headed goof ass and a pseudo cool tough guy. Anyway, Shinra helped bring luxury and comfort to the citizens of Midgard by harnessing the planet’s all purpose energy source known as the “Lifestream”. Yeah, there’s that famous Eastern “flow of life force through the stream of existence now give me $1000 for rearranging your furniture” philosophy at work.

The problem is, by using the planet’s “life force” like they are, Shinra may or may not be killing the planet. There’s an underground group of environmental terrorists/freedom fighters called AVALANCHE who think Shinra’s doing more harm than good and think it’s time that the corporation close shop, lay off all of it’s employees and stop providing the people of Midgard with comfort and convenience. Not ones to give in to threats and intimidation (because I’m sure they’re usually the ones doing both), Shinra puts into action its personal Gestapo peace keeping force known as SOLDIER. Does SOLDIER stand for anything? Who the fuck knows. I’m not willing to look it up, all I know is that it’s spelled all in caps and has nothing to do with Kurt Russell, Harry Knowles or self-centered jack-offs with a bone to pick who write negative reviews for movies they’ve never seen.

Basically, the rest of the story from here, in 200 words or less, plays out like such: There are two major SOLDIER members – Cloud Strife and Sephiroth Doesn’t Have A Last Name That Makes Him Sound Like A Little Emo Bitch. Cloud sees the light of the resistance and joins the hippies in their crusade to shut down the demons of the corporate world… and to partake in a little free love with queen flower child Aerith. Meanwhile, Sephiroth has learned that he’s a genetics experiment by Shinra’s scientists, created by splicing human cells with the cells of Jenova, some crazy space god that fell to Earth long ago and whom Shinra Corp’s been poking and prodding ever since. Not happy about getting the test-tube baby treatment, Seph goes ape shit (or “bananas” if you prefer, because let’s be honest, they’re literally the same thing) and proclaims all out war on every sorry motherfucker that gets in his way, Cloud and friends included. Aerith gets caught in the big baby’s hate rave and gets corpsed up, becoming probably the first major Final Fantasy character to die and NOT be brought back later in some kind of divine resurrection sequence so that true love can prevail. Anyway, this all leads to a big finale in the game… of which I’m not exactly sure what happens, since my crystal balls need waxing and are coming out a little hazy today… and I never bothered to finish the game.

But, that’s where the movie comes in handy with the ol’ backstory database. The big final battle ends prematurely (as most final battles do when they get older, though it’s nothing to be ashamed about and there are plenty of modern medicines that can help that these days) when the planet itself puts it’s ultimate defense mechanism into affect and shuts down everything, rescinding it’s Lifestream like a spoiled kid taking back his football and going home because nobody wants to play by his rules. Sephiroth is apparently killed off as well in his final battle with former friend and co-worker Cloud and the Shinra Corp headquarters (along with Rufus) goes up in column of fire and noise that makes The Towering Inferno look like a retarded kid shooting a bottle rocket up his nose. Advent Children picks up two years later…

Some kind of plague has started eating away at the folk of Midgard. Dubbed “Geostigma” or “the star scar disease”, it’s an incurable degenerative condition that mars the victim’s body with black star shaped skin irritations while killing them inside. In this post Shinra world, Cloud has partnered with lifetime friend, fellow AVALANCHE fighter and general hot tamale ass kicker Tifa Lockhart to open their bad-ass version of Federal Express, with Tifa taking the orders and Cloud delivering them on his big honking futuristic motorcycle of ultimate machismo super destiny power. Seems the two are little more than friends/business partners, putting an end to the “so, who did Cloud really love?” debate that Final Fantasy Fanboys and Fangirls have been going on about for the past 8 or 9 fucking years. This and the fact that Cloud’s constantly slipping into hallucinations of talking with Aerith’s ghost about forgiving himself for all the shit he was forced to do in life kinda solidify where his heart really lies… and don’t you even think about sending me any kind of debate about this, because I’m not going to be drawn into one of those quief-tastic flame wars about a game I barely have interest in. Jesus turned water into wine, I’ll turn your blood into kerosene and, well, you can guess where it goes from there.

Meanwhile, it seems Shinra Corp isn’t completely dead, at least not in spirit anyway, as Rufus (who looks none the worse for wear considering he was at the heart of that Towering Inferno comparison I just made two paragraphs ago) and his two hench-lunkheads Rude and Reno (who provide the much welcome and much needed comedy relief) contact Cloud and Tifa and request a meeting with the spiky haired emo biker leather warrior. Turns out Shinra recently found something very important in the remnants of one of their old laboratories (though Rufus claims that whatever it was it was lost in transport back to civilization) and now have a trio of Sephiroth wanna-be/devotees harassing them to try and take this mysterious item for themselves. The trinity in query are Yazoo, Loz and Kadaj who also ride around on souped up motorbikes all days, pushing around people and trying to be as Sephiroth as possible in their daily lives. I knew a lot of guys like this in high school and beyond. Despite the fact that their type always lost in the movies, these pricks tried their best to be every self-righteous jock and preppy rich boy they saw in the movies, whether it was the Kevin Bacon spanking frat brother villains of Animal House or the jock-strap slinging man swine of Revenge of the Nerds, I’ve been in the sights of every kind. You know how Cloud should’ve dealt with these guys right off the bat? Slap one of ‘em into a headlock, ignoring all attempts by the others to pull him off until the fuck chokes to death, face blue and eyes bulging out of his skull while his bloated tongue protrudes from beyond his purple lips. Be sure to maintain a psychotic look in your eyes and deranged laughter while doing so, as it helps freak the other guys out. After they realize that their best friend and part-time closet partner is dead because they were a couple of pitiful shitbags who needed to push others around to feel better about their tiny penises and the fact that they never had a positive male role model while growing up, they’ll spend the rest of their lives walking on the other side of the street when they see someone physically smaller than they or just generally avoiding any and all comic book stores, art supply outlets and skate parks.

Oh yeah, just make sure you have a good disposal plan ready ahead of time for the body, especially if you can come up with some airtight evidence that will place the wad’s demise solely on the drunken violent exploits of his own people. A good alibi is also one of those “good to have at all times” things. It can’t hurt to watch a few episodes of “C.S.I.” while you’re masterminding this whole thing, because it will help you put together a checklist of shit to remember to do in order to not get caught…

Wow, I think that’s the first big off-topic blackout I’ve had in a while.

So Cloud meets the dumb-ass trio, who play around with him for a while in various fight sequences, all of which he’s pretty much outmatched in. Whether it’s because of the Geostigma he’s suffering through, the hyper genes these goons have being members of the same Shinra super soldier experiment that created Sephiroth (not a shock) or just the fact that Cloud’s simply outnumbered THREE-TO-ONE, our hero pretty much gets his ass handed to him for the next hour or so, even getting shot in the face by one baddie during their first encounter! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT ONLY SURVIVE GETTING SHOT IN THE FACE, BUT MANAGE TO DEFLECT THE BULLET WITH YOUR OWN SKULL RATHER THAN HAVE YOUR BRAIN VENTILATED?! Is Cloud supposed to be David Blaine or something?! Shit!

Each time, the gang’s leader Kadaj (aka Sephiroth Lite) talks about wanting to find the group’s “Mother” (no doubt Jenova’s remains… which have apparently been reduced to either just her head or her primordial genetic material at this point) and then enacting some mass ritual referred to as “Reunion” in which all of Jenova’s “children” will come together and take over the world. Meanwhile, Cloud’s not the only one getting a collection of new cuts, bruises and concussions from the world’s angriest boy band, as Tifa faces off for a few rounds with Loz, the trio’s resident bruiser who has some kind of tazer fist he likes to lay into his unfortunate recipients. Though Miss Lockhart puts up a helluva fight and even seems to have grabbed a little victory for the good guys, the brute shakes off her best shots, tazers her off her sweet pixilated ass and walks out with a box full of Cloud’s collected Materia.

Quick interlude of educational power: Materia is concentrated Lifestream energy in the form of oversized marbles that, when bonded with a person, grant that person special abilities/super powers with which to whoop the asses of others. Giving the bad guys a whole steamer trunk full of ‘em? Not a good thing.

It all comes down to a couple of big final confrontation scenes in the last stretch of the movie. The first consists of Cloud teaming up with all of his old Final Fantasy VII buddies to take on a giant dragon beast summoned by Kadaj. Cloud finally forgives himself for Aerith and all his whiny little personal problems that make him the tragic hero that all the girls symp and swoon for and this clears the path for him to join with friends Tifa, a Mr. T impersonator with a robot hand, a gun wielding vampire with the pointiest fucking boots in the world, a perky J-Pop girl with temper issues, a punk version of the Lion King with a flaming tail and a living cartoon on his back and a grizzled old mechanic/pilot guy with a big spear to save the world of Midgard. The second scenario sees Cloud playing Goldilocks as he partakes in yet another motorcycle acrobatics chase sequence with the three bears that, even as a computer animated fantasy movie scene, still comes off as ridiculous and ends in a ball of fire and broken hardware. Then there’s the big finale or, what we O.G.s (Original Gamers) call “the Boss Battle”, which pits Cloud in sword swinging duelocity that comes off as just too “Dragonball Z” on the scale of “unbelievable over-the-top nonsense fights”.

Do Cloud and the good time gang defeat the giant fire-breathing dragon-like hellbeast? What terrible secret is Rufus hiding behind his “don’t look at me, I’m hideous!” shroud? Will Kadaj and crew find whatever remains of Jenova? Are there any remains of Jenova to be found? Is there a cure to Geostigma? Will Sephiroth or Aerith somehow make one last appearance without the aid of character hallucinations or flashbacks? Exactly how fucking big can Cloud’s sword get before he just can’t lift that sucker off the ground and everyone is laugh at him while he hangs his head in shame?! Well, between a giant blue fireball a half-mile wide, a suicide luchadore dive-fest from the top of a 30 story building, a chase scene that makes the highway stunt sequence in The Matrix: Reloaded look feasible, a sentient puddle with a thing for sword wielding pretty boys and children, and a couple of swords that can cut through entire office buildings, all these questions and more will be answered as Final Fantasy VII’s story (or at least this chapter…) comes to a close.

You can’t deny that the whole thing’s about as pretty as Scarlett Johansson in her birthday suit doing her best impression of the letter ‘V’ with her legs (thought I’d give 1980s Barbara Crampton a little break). Hell, that was about the only positive reinforcement I could give Spirits Within, so that’s not a surprise. Unlike Spirits Within though, Advent Children gives us some of the epic ass whoop that was sorely lacking before, making it a definite pick-up for any action junkie who gets the blood flow going to their nether regions when things explode and people hit each other (of which I am one). Unfortunately, the movie completely ignores what made the game so endearing in the first place: epic storytelling, deep character study and interaction, and a clear message to get the players to consider their own lives and the world around them.

To these points, some people will say “I didn’t need some kind of sweeping tale for the ages here, just some closure on the events of the game” while others will no doubt comment “What are ya, some kinda art school fag?!”. Well, I’ve never attended art school (thank fuck that I avoided that hollow tip to the face) and I’m not a British cigarette, so you’re wrong in both cases on that one Ugg. As for the first group, hey, that’s fine, you get what you need to get out of this one. I just think that, if they were just interested in getting this shit out as a wrap-up to the game, why not just remake or re-release the game and shove Advent Children in as an unlockable feature? Why did they have to release it as its own movie? The game was released NEARLY A DECADE AGO for a gaming system that hasn’t seen original material in years. Of the people seeing this movie, my numbers come out to only about 60% who will have actually played the original game (with probably only 70% of those remembering what the thing was even about) with the other 40% being divided amidst people watching it because it’s animated, it’s from Japan, they need to review it for a website/newspaper/magazine or because the title sounds like some kind of creepy pedophile movie from the Netherlands.

Whatever the point that I’m trying to make might be, it all boils down to this: the movie looks good, it sounds fine (note that I’ve got the English subbed version, so this isn’t a review based on the dub) and it’s an action fiend gamer’s wet dream. The story and characters are shallow though, so much so that the DVD should come with one of those “No Diving” signs they post at the YMCA… where you can get yourself clean, you can get a good meal and you can do whatever you feel. Three things you can’t do with Advent Children.

Sorry if I didn’t devote all the time and backstory to the movie as some would’ve liked. I’m trying to cut down on the length for these reviews so they’re less novel length and arduous. But, if you’d like to learn more about any and all Final Fantasy VII ridiculousness or if you’re like me and just need a refresher of events, check out the Wikipedia page for “Final Fantasy VII” and let the trivial geek knowledge flow.