The Trailer

The Plot

Two years after the events in “Final Fantasy VII”, a disease called ‘Seikon-Shoukougun’, or ‘Geostigma’, is spreading through the planet. This disease is believed to have been caused by the body fighting off foreign material that invaded the body two years earlier, at the end of “Final Fantasy VII”. Guilt-ridden and haunted by his past, ex-SOLDIER Cloud Strife has decided to live a secluded, solitary life away from his friends while maintaining “Strife’s Delivery Service”, whose headquarters is located in Tifa Lockheart’s bar, the Seventh Heaven. Tifa’s bar serves as an orphanage for children stricken with Geostigma. Here, Tifa keeps an eye on Barret’s six-year-old daughter, Marlene, while Barret searches the planet for an alternative energy source to the Planet’s energy, Mako. One day, Cloud receives a phone call from the former Shinra, Inc. president, Rufus, asking him for protection from a mysterious man named Kadaj.
(Source IMDB)

The Breakdown

Who is in it? Rachael Leigh Cook (voice), Steve Blum (voice), Beau Billingslea (voice), Mena Suvari (voice)
Genre: Anime – Action – Sci-Fi
Was it action packed? Yes.
Would this movie be for every action fan? No.
Should you see it? If you liked the game, you will need to see it. If you haven’t you won’t be left totally in the dark but you may not understand certain things.
Run Time: 101 minutes
Rating: PG-13

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The Verdict

What is there to really say about Final Fantasy VII? It was an awesome game for the Playstation (one) and the story was phenomenal. Advent Children takes place 2 years after the game ends and although some of my gamer friends were apprehensive about this movie (before seeing it) they soon saw that this movie really complimented the story. I’m going to pretty much assume that this review isn’t for everyone and the people reading it were fans of the game (series) as well so I won’t be explaining that. Many people in the city of Edge are infected with a disease called ‘geostigma’. The Shinra Electric Company had used the Lifestream (the planet’s energy source) to power the world. Shinra had a group of warriors named SOLDIER that had been infected with the cells from an alien calamity named JENOVA making them very powerful. Cloud was a member of SOLDIER as well as Sephiroth. Sephiroth was an amazing warrior that used a 6ft long katana named the Masamune. Sephiroth went insane and Cloud killed him.

Three silver haired brothers known as the ‘Remnants of Sephiroth’ try to kill Cloud but they fail to realize that Cloud is the most powerful being alive. The Remnants are looking for their mother (JENOVA) they think Cloud (their brother) knows where she is. They go after Tifa and end up taking a some children to a pool in a glowing forest. The Remnants dump some JENOVA cells into a pond and make the children drink from it which brainwashes them. As Cloud shows up for the children the three brothers gang up on him and they start to kick his ass until Vincent and his awesome ‘Spawn‘ looking cape shows up to save him. Vincent fills Cloud in on the brothers’ plan and the possibility of them re-creating Sephiroth. In the town square the remnants unleash a powerful dragon called Bahamut SIN. Barret and the rest of the gang fight it for a while, but when Cloud enters the fight it ends up getting sliced in half.

Cloud chases the leader of the Remnants on motorcycle for a bit and they end up at a standoff fight. When the remnant leader gets a hold of some JENOVA cells for himself he turns into Sephiroth. He and Cloud fight for a while and Sephiroth tells Cloud about his plans for taking over the planet, yada yada. After an impressive swordfight Cloud uses the unmistakable technique (not named in the movie) called the Omnislash. As Sephiroth disappears to reveal a defeated remnant, he too dies and joins the lifestream. Cloud gets shot by the other two remnants and dies with them in a large explosion.

As Cloud is floating through the lifestream (which looks like the jump screen in The Matrix) Aerith decides that it wasn’t Cloud’s time to die yet and he wakes up in the sacred water of the Church. Cloud basically baptizes the people infected with the Geostigma and they are instantly cured. The End. I rate this movie an 8/10 for its cool story and jaw dropping CGI every bit as good as Final Fantasy -The Spirits Within.

Official Nutshell-Movies Explanation

Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (2005): An Ex-Mercenary is forced out of isolation to stop his arch nemesis and cure a diseased planet.

Fun Facts

• In the battle between Tifa and Loz, when Loz’s cellphone rings, his ring tone is the music that is played after a victorious battle in the Final Fantasy games. Coincidentally, the music played during the battle is the Final Fantasy VII battle music reprised.
• According to Director Tetsuya Nomura in the DVD Commentary, the original movie was only supposed to be twenty minutes. The details of the original story are sketchy, but from what little Nomura has said about it, all we know is that it featured someone requesting a message to be sent to Cloud. The message is then relayed to Cloud through several children and, when the message finally reaches Cloud, we learn who the messenger is. Although Nomura insisted that he very much liked the original script, as it became the foundation for the theme of the final result of the movie, he decided to make the project more grand in scope only because early word of this movie generated so much interest that a demand for the film to be feature length eventually became so great that Nomura complied.
• The creators of the film had no prior knowledge of how to make a movie, so it was based on their knowledge of in-game movies.
• The phone used by Cloud is a Panasonic P900iV only sold in Japan. It comes in three colors, and the black one is called “Cloud Black” after the character’s name.
• Bahamut is a recurrent creature in the Final Fantasy series, in Final Fantasy VII (Psx) there’s three of them, Bahamut, Neo Bahamut and Bahamut Zero, this time in the movie its called Bahamut Sin.
• Sephiroth’s sword is called the “Masamune”.
• Kadaj’s weapon is named the “Souba”. Loz’s weapon is named the “Dual Hound”. Yazoo’s weapon is named the “Velvet Nightmare”. Cloud’s sword is named the “First Tsurugi”. His original “Buster Sword”, given to him by Zack, is used to commemorate the spot Zack was killed. Cloud’s bike is named “Fenrir”.
• Cloud uses five noticeable limit breaks from the original video game (Final Fantasy VII) in the movie. The first he uses is Blade Beam when he is fighting Loz and Yazoo at the Forgotten City. The second is Braver, when he is fighting Bahamut Sin (his sword glows blue and then he strikes). The third is Climhazzard, which is used when Cloud defeats Bahamut Sin. The Fourth is Omnislash, which Cloud used to defeat Sephiroth over Midgar. This attack is also used to defeat Sephiroth in the game. The fifth is Finishing Touch, which is used on Kadaj. This is evident by the way Cloud swings his sword and Kadaj is thrown away.
• The opening scene of the movie is the closing scene of the original video game and is entitled 500 years later, the following scene in the movie is entitled 498 years previously, making the movie 2 years after the events of the video game.
• The planet itself is called Gaia, in mythology Gaia is the spirit of the Earth.