FFVII:AC (as it’s called in the gaming community) takes place 2 years after the story in the video game Final Fantasy VII. That’s right, this is the sequel to a video game. Having never played the game (or any FF game for that matter), I will do my best to summarize the plot of this film.
The world has a great life force that envelops the planet called the life stream. This life stream is what keeps us, the animals, plants and the planet itself alive and in harmony. Well, man being man, we discover a way to tap that baby and use it as cheap energy (I tell ya, those Green Peace nuts are never happy. We find a new cheap energy source and they’re still pissy about it). Well, the planet and a bunch of protestors get pissed (yes, I said the planet, Earth is actually a character in the game and film) and they start a revolt against the evil corporation that tapped the life force.
To make matters worse, an evil force called Jenova is also attacking the Earth (just in case there is not enough going on). Finally, the evil corporation (in their corporation buildings, being all corporationy) have created a league of super soldiers to protect their assets. Well, one of the super soldiers goes rogue and starts attacking everything and everyone. His name is Sephiroth. He is a bad ass. Our hero is Cloud, he is also a bad ass. Let the bad assing BEGIN!
Cloud beats Sephiroth, the corporation loses their market share of the life stream and Jenova is destroyed! Everyone rejoices.
Except me! Because that’s just the story of FFVII THE VIDEO GAME!!! That’s the fucking backstory to this movie. And believe you, me, that is a shitload to try to absorb before this film, if you’ve never played the video game.
So onto the movie, after the battle that ends the game, Jenova’s remains are infecting people and spreading a world wide epidemic. Even our hero, Cloud, is infected. Meanwhile, three silver-haired warriors (who share a vague resemblance to Sephiroth) are attacking people all over the place looking for “mother” (I kid you not, the bad guys in the film are looking for mommy).
Cloud of course gets pulled into the action, along with the rest of the heroes from the game (although they all have pretty minor roles compared to Cloud). And the corporation has a hand behind all of this somehow (because they have to keep being corporationy).
So, that’s the plot of the movie in a nutshell.
What did I think? Well, I have very mixed feelings. First, the bad. Without having played the video game, this film was REALLY hard to follow. It was actually Joe, Head Movie Monkey and Chef Extraordinaire (see Truthbringer’s staff) who suggested I see this movie. He was of course a huge fan of the game and he loved the film. So, I think if you have some knowledge of the game, you’ll enjoy this movie more and follow it much easier.
Furthermore, the whole movie revolves around Cloud. His band of followers, who are all bad asses in their own right, are only in one action scene and even in that scene, they only help Cloud to get at the bad guy. They don’t actually do much fighting against that particular villain. And my favorite was the final climactic fight scene. Cloud is fighting with the main bad guy. Cloud’s crew comes soaring in on their jet. They see Cloud fighting the bad guy. And what do they do? They say, “This is Cloud’s fight. We can’t get involved.” And then they sit back and watch as Cloud gets his ass kicked. Even after Cloud finally beats the bad guy, they just sit back and watch as one of the bad guy’s cronies sneaks up behind Cloud and shoots him in the back. What the fuck? These are the worst sidekicks ever! They make France look like the greatest allies in the world! Get some spine and watch your boys back for fucks sake!
Finally, on to the good. This IS the most gorgeous movie I have ever seen. Every character looks flawless. All of the settings are marvelous to look at. Many times I forgot I was watching an animated film. Hands down, you should see this film just to awe at its beauty.
The fight scenes are also bad ass. Fast paced. Lots of kung fu, gun play and sword fighting. It’s always good to see animated fights because animators can do more than what is possible in live action. This movie takes the action to a whole new level. Here’s my favorite screenshot. In the final battle, Cloud and the bad guy actually fight on the outside of a collapsing building. It was just a very cool new setting to have a sword battle:
And low and behold, the voice acting was actually very well done. I watched the dubbed version of the film. You can also watch it with subtitles (or without if you know Japanese) but I didn’t feel like a reading a movie I already had enough trouble understanding.
Rachel Leigh Cook and Mena Suvari play two of the lead females and are the only two actors of name who were cast. Most of the other actors are video game voice actors. In fact quite a few of them did voices for Kingdom Hearts. For those who know gaming (not me!) the characters from FFVII are reborn in the Kingdom Hearts games. In fact, the hero of Kingdom Hearts is Cloud. The coolest addition to the cast is the guy who does the voice of Superman on Justice League, did the voice of the main bad guy. It was cool to hear ol’ Supes as a villain for once.
ON THE DVD:
A bizarre “story digest” of the original game. You basically get to watch someone else play the original game. Strange.
A fairly informative “making of” featurette.
Deleted scenes.
Sneak preview of upcoming FF games.
FINAL ANALYSIS!
Even with the problem following the plot at times, this was a super cool movie to watch. I still cannot get over how beautiful this movie was. And when push came to shove, I think I finally caught onto the plot and felt the story was pretty cool, convoluted, but still pretty cool. If you’re a gamer, go buy this movie. If you’re not a gamer, go rent this and look at the pretty colors.
RENT THIS MOVIE!
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