V.G. Movies #20: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

[Welcome back to the Evolution of Video Game Movies series. Every week, I will be moving forward through time, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent of video game movies. I will be detailing the histories of the games and how the films came about, and both my and fan reaction to the adaptations. Practically all of my background information is either common knowledge or from Wikipedia. So without further ado, let's move on to the next film on the list.]

THE HISTORY

Around mid-April, I discussed the most important video game series of my life and its first film, Final Fantasy. In that article, I briefly mentioned a handful of times the most popular game of the series, Final Fantasy VII. So popular, in fact, that almost half of The Spirits Within stole from it. The game series itself has never actually had a direct sequel, at least up until 2003 when Final Fantasy X-2 was released.

Eventually, rumors of a Final Fantasy 7 remake ran rampant, updating the graphics and whatnot to enhance the experience of the original game. While that still has yet to happen, Square-Enix decided to create the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, which is a series of games and other media expanding on the world of FF7. Each title would focus on a different aspect or set of characters to help on the expansion.

The first to come out for this was a phone/mobile game called Final Fantasy: Crisis Core that acted as a prequel to the original game and focused on the Turks. However, it wasn't the first to be announced. That honor went to a movie sequel the game--Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The film was conceptualized to follow the story of Cloud and Tifa, along with the children they helped to take care of. And while there were other game titles to follow, it's the film we're focusing on for now.

The film takes place 2 years after the end of the game, and this brings with it some positives and negatives. First and foremost, the film caters to the fans of the game, giving you characters, events, music, and overall visuals that are an FF7 fan's wet dream. On the downside... the film caters to the fans of the game. If you have not played Final Fantasy 7, this movie will make absolutely no sense to you, and this has been the primary complaint of reviewers and critics everywhere. But is that the only problem with the movie? Let's see...

THE FILM

Of course I own this on DVD, but it's been a while since I last watched it. Even having played the game more than once... I found it a lot more confusing than I remember it being. The film, as I said, picks up 2 years after the end of the game, and everyone is just trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild what's left of their lives. But a deadly illness called Geostigma has spread around the world, mostly infecting children and young adults. Cloud and Tifa have begun a delivery service (on top of taking care of orphans), but Cloud has run off to be alone, leaving Tifa to take care of Marlene and other kids. However, the remnants of Shinra Corp have contacted Cloud, wanting his help taking care of a certain matter. Three guys who look suspiciously similar to Sephiroth--the previous big bad--have appeared, and they're looking for the head of Jenova (an alien being that wanted to destroy the planet and that was used in experimentation by Shinra, thus helping to create both Cloud and Sephiroth). With it, they can resurrect Sephiroth and continue the plan to destroy the world.

See? Even in the opening plot summary I had to go into background game information just to get through it. To be fair, the movie doesn't intend to alienate its audience. There's an opening narrative that gives a brief (very brief) summary of the game. But it leaves out some information that can leave the unaware viewer a bit lost, particularly anything dealing with Aerith or Zack (or any of the other side characters that show up in the film later, at least anything outside a quick visual of them all fighting Sephiroth). Regardless, the biggest thing a viewer unacquainted with the game is missing is the character development and connections. Gamers would have spent anywhere from 60-100+ hours with these characters prior to getting to this film. They would know their background, their connections to each other, and everything they had to go through to get to this point. In other words, a non-gamer would have no emotional connection to any of these people or their situation going into this... and, unfortunately, the film tends to rely on the fact you already know them.

Don't get me started on the Geostigma stuff--it's a new thing to the film, and it's kinda poorly explained so that even I have a hard time following it. In fact, for the most part, the new stuff (geostigma, the Sephiroth remnants, etc.) could have been fleshed out a wee bit better. It's like they had a cool idea, but ran out of time in the writing department to figure out and explain exactly what these things are or how they came about. Geostigma is at least mostly explained, but the baddies are just... there. No idea how they came to be, they just are. I suppose if you don't think about it too much, it's fine.

All of that being said, practically everything else about this film is outstanding--particularly the visuals, the action, and the music. Let's start with the pretty, pretty pictures. This is basically the best looking animated film you're going to see for years. Even just watching it again, I have to say I'm having a hard time thinking of an animated film that is more gorgeous than this one. The animation is purely brilliant and ahead of its time. Matching this are the awe-inspiring action sequences. They actually tried to do as much motion capture as they could for the action, but then had to go back to pure animation when it came to things that were physically impossible to pull off in the real world. The way the "camera" is used and the set-pieces and the choreography... everything just comes together perfectly to give a lot of style and some of the best damn action scenes you'll see in an animated film (not to mention better than some live action films). And then, of course, the music. Composer Nobuo Uematsu returns with a score taken and updated almost entirely from the game, giving a fun, beautiful, nostalgic feel.

So whereas Spirits Within was considered a failure (though it really isn't) based on how it's absolutely nothing like the source material, Advent Children can be considered a failure (though it really isn't) by those who haven't played the game, since it relies too much on the source material. Regardless, the action and animation are so brilliantly done that you'll sometimes forget you have no idea what's going on. So if I'm saying the story is the issue, but the visual aspect makes up for it--it's a style over substance film? Completely. If you're going into this movie, you're going to take out those two things as the biggest positive (well, those and the music). Honestly, I don't think I could recommend it to anybody who hasn't played the game, unless you just want to see it for the cool factor. It ain't perfect, even for a gamer, but it's a fun enough time.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

R2D2's Ultimate Top 10 Countdown Of The 2000s #3 - Animated Films.

[For the last 10 days of the decade, I'm doing a Top 10 list a day, all culminating into an ultimate post of Top 10 lists. We have previously seen Top 10 Comedies and Dramas. Now we're moving on.]

Top 10 Animated Films of the 2000s

It's Christmas Eve, a day children everywhere want to wish upon a star and believe in magic and the fantastic. So what a better genre to discuss on this most wishful of days than animated films? Sure, animation can span many genres and many languages. But no matter if it was sci-fi, fantasy, foreign, or whatever, if it's animated, it's on this particular list. That being said, let's get to it (as a note, it was surprisingly easy to list these in 'countdown' order... until the top 3).

10. Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children (2005)

I place this in the #10 spot for one simple reason: it's geared only towards those who've played the video game. If you've never played FF7, you probably wouldn't understand (nor would you be watching) Advent Children. But I wanted to include it on this list. Why? First, because it was a long-time coming, highly anticipated story. Second, because regardless of whether or not you understand the movie, the animation is freakin' amazing. Advancing on the technology used in Spirits Within, Advent Children takes it to a whole new level, making it much more realistic. And for those who have played the game, the movie is a real treat. The action is stunning, the music is great... the story itself is so-so, but who cares? It's an FF7 movie with amazing animation.

9. The Incredibles (2004)

I know this movie would probably make a bunch of a lists. It's a good one. Families of superheroes and the drama around them keeping quiet. Jason Lee as a villain. Jokes about capes. It's all here, and it's a wonderful film.

8. Shrek (2001)

Can you make this list without including Shrek? Of the series thus far, I've really only cared for the first one. It's your classic fairy tale turned on its head, making the monster a hero, the 'hero' an idiot, the sidekick a donkey, and the princess... well, you know. And you gotta love all the fairy tales walking around. If you're any kind of fairy tale fan, this movie is great just for that aspect. But what's really at the heart of the film is the friendship between Shrek and Donkey. I think if they hadn't made it as heartwarming as it was, the film would not have worked like it did.

7. Titan A.E. (2000)

This is probably one of the 'earliest' films on any of my lists. It'll probably not show up on anybody else's either (I seem to have a knack for picking those kinds of films). But it's one I really enjoy. I love the sci-fi aspect of it, trying to create a new world after the old one was destroyed. There's action, comedy, romance... it's all there. The animation is really good, too. And the voice cast is excellent: Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, John Leguizamo, Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo, Drew Barrymore, Ron Pearlman... hell, even Tone Loc is in this (remember him?). Not to mention Jim Cummings, who has a voice role in another film on this list, as well. It's just an all-around fun film with great animation. Completely underrated, in my opinion.

6. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

This was one of the first movies I rented through Netflix. Now usually, I watch a movie once and send it back. I think by the time I sent this film back, I had watched it at least 3-4 times. This is the first anime film on my list, as well. The story is, apparently, a well-known one in Japan. It's the story of a girl who, after having an incredibly bad day ending with almost dying, finds she has the ability to throw herself back in time. At first, she keeps redoing the same day over and over until she likes where she's at. Then she gets to the point where she just does it with important things. There are funny little moments where she tries to stop certain things from happening (like a friend telling her he loves her). But, of course, there are consequences to her actions that she must face. And there is so much more to the story I'm not saying. It sounds like a sci-fi movie, but it's really a drama. The film's main focus is on the relationship between the girl and her friends (and a bit on her family). The first time I saw it, I was a little confused toward one character (the 'aunt'), but I later found out this is kind of a sequel to the actual story, while being the same story anyway, but the 'aunt' character was the original girl. That made parts of the film make much more sense. Still, it's an amazing film with gorgeous animation... and I dare you not to feel emotional at the end.

5. Kung Fu Panda (2008)

I remember when this movie came out, I thought it was going to be one of the stupidest movies ever. But I was bored one day after it had been out for many weeks and decided to check it out. Boy, was I surprised. I totally loved the movie. The action was surprisingly fun, much like any other kung fu film. And while some of the secondary characters weren't very developed, their interactions were funny. I also remember sitting through this movie going "I recognize some of these voices..." and not being able to figure them out (besides the obvious Jack Black and Seth Rogen). And then when the closing credits started, I sat in awe at the star cast of vocals this movie had. Very fitting for such a good movie.

4. The Princess and the Frog (2009)

I didn't want to do this list until I had seen this movie. But now that I have, I went ahead and did this list. Similar to the previous film, I wasn't exactly hopping (no pun intended) out of my seat to go see this. But, yet again, I was wrong. The movie had some surprisingly adult moments, some incredibly sad moments, some really fun/funny moments, and some amazingly creepy/scary moments. The animation is classic. The songs are great. The villain is both fun and scary. The movie was a throwback to some of the more classic Disney films, but it made itself a new classic in the process.

3. Up (2009)

This is a film that would probably be on many people's lists, if not #1 spots. They took a risk with this film... centering a movie around a geriatric and a young, overweight Asian kid? But they somehow pulled it off. The film is highly emotional, and the first 10 or so minutes is incredibly sad and moving... probably more moving than some entire films as of late. The film is bursting with imagination, but more importantly, it's bursting with heart. And I think that's why it's so good.

2. WALL-E (2008)

Another film that's gonna end up on a lot of lists, possibly some #1 spots. In fact, it almost made my #1 spot, and it was tough trying to decide some order here. Similar to Up, they took some risks here. A children's movie with virtually no dialogue, especially in the first 20 or so minutes? A children's movie centering around a robot love story? A children's movie with a strong environmental message (I mean, we all remember Fern Gully)? But it worked. It all worked. Children and adults alike sat enthralled, completely taken in by WALL-E's naivety and childish wonderment. And then when EVE shows up, our hearts jump with glee to see WALL-E trying to impress this female robot. And in an age of sex and violence, we sit on the edge of our seats, just waiting for these two lovable robots to hold hands. Oh, not to mention the animation is astounding.

1. Spirited Away (2001)

It was tough trying to decide whether I should put this over WALL-E or not, but in the end, I think it deserved it. This is one influential little film... the first, if I recall correctly, anime to not only be nominated for an Academy Award, but win. Miyazaki is a genius at what he does, and it really all culminated together in this film. The animation is great and fills you with wonderment. The story is fantastic. The characters are complex. The morals aren't shoved down your throat, but are present. Even if you don't like anime, you should check out this film. If there was any anime film to see before you die, it's this one. And even if you don't like reading subtitles, I would actually go so far as to say that, for once, the dubbing isn't bad. They actually did pretty well with it, and I'll watch this movie either way. It's just full of imagination and completely inspiring. An all-around great film.


End Note: Please don't kill me for not including the likes of Finding Nemo or Ratatouille. Nemo's good, but doesn't really stick with me, and I've only seen Ratatouille once... a while back.

Video Game Movies: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

I haven’t done this article-type since the Harry Potter one, which was one of my first articles, so this outta be interesting. With the advent of another live-action Street Fighter movie coming (centered around Chun-Li… who is being played by the non-Asian Kristin Kreuk), I felt it might be a good time to talk about Video Game Movies. Video Game Movies have been the bane of movie existence for some time. Some are pretty good, others decent, but most are just God-awful and incredibly horrible in paying the original source material homage. The following five movie series’ (or just movies) will detail what is good, bad, and ugly about each. But you don’t always have to be a fan of the games to be able to say whether or not it was a bad movie (though it does help some). So without further ado, here we go.

NOTE: Uwe Boll movies were automatically disqualified from this list due to none of them having any quality outside of ‘ugly’.

Super Mario Bros. (1993).

Intro: What’s a video game movie list without this one? Seriously. It would just be incomplete. Super Mario Bros., based on the insanely popular video game series of the same name, starred Bob Hoskins as Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi, Dennis Hopper as Koopa, and Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy. Though I must admit I haven’t seen this one since I was younger.

The Good: The movie might be bad, but it had some fun moments. Yoshi, after all, looked pretty cool. Also, those jumping boot things that they wore later on into the movie were cool. And Samantha Mathis was pretty hot in this movie, I have to say. Oh, and getting their red and green uniforms toward the end was funny/cool.

The Bad: Probably the acting, but it’s been too long to say. If I had to add something to this category, though, I’d say the ending. It left it at this huge ambiguous cliffhanger that really isn’t explained at all… and there’s probably never going to be a sequel… so that sucks. Most of everything else pretty much falls into the next category, though.

The Ugly: The story is absolutely nothing like the game. It’s like the writers tried to pay homage, but then got scared that the audience might not be able to grasp or comprehend the fantasy aspect of it, so they added a scientific twist to the whole thing. Instead of being just another world, it became a parallel universe where all the dinosaurs went when the meteorite crashed. Then they evolved into humans, as if they were afraid of having walking dinosaurs. And the Goombas were just de-evolved human-forms with huge bodies and tiny heads (when it should have been the OTHER way around). Toad was a hippie with a guitar and harmonica who was turned into a Goomba. Koopa was just an old dude who turned into a Raptor or something for roughly 2.5 seconds at the end instead of being a bulky monster dinosaur thing. It was just completely screwed up.

The Mortal Kombat Movies (1995 and 1997).

Intro: The first movie was actually pretty decent and fun. The second movie was, well, not. The first one revolved around just the basic characters from the first game or so. The second one… well, we’ll get to that.

The Good: The first movie was entertaining, stayed true to characters, and had some cool action. Scorpion and Sub-Zero were awesome. The Liu Kang/Reptile fight is wicked awesome. Goro was cool looking, too. I liked how they even threw in signature moves for each character. And Liu Kang doing the Hadoken or whatever at the end was awesome. The second movie… well, it was cool seeing all those characters on screen. And the Scorpion/Smoke/Sub-Zero fight was neat.

The Bad: First of all, Johnny Cage dies within the first five minutes. How lame is that? Second, the bad guy was lame and wasn’t nearly as creepy as Shang Tsung. Third, the dude who played Rayden changed (with a shorter haircut), only to be explained by him becoming mortal or something. Finally, the woman who played Sonya also changed… pfft. They kill off the character when the actor is the same, but they keep the characters whose actors change.

The Ugly: While seeing all the brand new characters from the later games on screen was cool, there were just far too many trying to be incorporated, and the story suffered for it. Not to mention that there were just some incredibly pointless scenes. It made the movie muddled and nearly pointless.

Silent Hill (2006).

Intro: Again, based on the games of the same name, Silent Hill is a creepy survival-horror game (supposedly one of the scariest). I haven’t played any of the games, but I’ve read that the movie was similar to the first game (I believe), but changed up a bit (such as making the main character a woman instead of a man).

The Good: This movie did have some pretty creepy moments, most specifically the ‘darkness’ scenes with Pyramid Head and all the other monsters (The Janitor was crazy! And I don’t mean the one from Scrubs). The story was done pretty well, too, as everything that comes together at the end was all pretty cool. The acting wasn’t too bad, either.

The Bad: After the first viewing, the movie gets pretty boring, especially the beginning. And the scenes with the husband (Sean Bean) are almost completely irrelevant and pointless. In fact, the movie was written with only a full-female cast, but the studio wanted some men in there, so they added the husband’s side of the story. It’s obvious that it was just tacked on with no real purpose.

The Ugly: The ending basically ruins this movie for me. I try to pretend the movie ends as soon as they drive off away from Silent Hill. But no… they go home in a world covered in the misty stuff never again to come back to the husband/father… and the little girl is still possessed or whatever by her evil half… and the sequel doesn’t seem to be coming until 2010 at the earliest, with possibly none of the cast from the first movie involved.

The Resident Evil Trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007).

Intro: The Resident Evil Trilogy is an odd puppy. The first movie is nothing like the games. The second movie tries to overcompensate. The third movie has to deal with the repercussions of the first two. So let’s get into it, shall we?

The Good: The first movie has the overall feel of the games, and the licker is pretty cool. The second movie has some of the characters from the games, such as Carlos, Jill, and the Ashford family. It also gives us Nemesis and S.T.A.R.S. The third movie removes Jill the Ashford’s and gives us Claire (sans her brother) and Wesker. The action that comes along with Alice is pretty cool, as she really is a badass, and Milla Jovovich is always cool. Oh, and the big fight at the end of the third movie with Tyrant was wicked cool.

The Bad: As stated, the first movie is nothing like the games at all in story. And you don’t even know Alice’s name until the ending credits. The Mansion was barely used, either. The second movie added in more game elements, but turned it from survival-horror to action. The third movie, unfortunately, had to wrap up all the crazy storylines going on, which made it fall symptom to something similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

The Ugly: Alice, a character completely unrelated to the games, was way too powerful of a character. She was literally almost unbeatable. That is… until the third movie, when suddenly she had weaknesses and limits to her abilities. Also, they cut and added characters in and out of these movies like they were nothing. Two characters major to the second movie (Jill and Angie Ashford) supposedly die between the second and third movies. Not to mention that a lot of the character backgrounds for the ones that were taken from the games were a lot different.

The Final Fantasy Movies (2001 and 2005).

Intro: There should technically only be one Final Fantasy movie (Advent Children), because Spirits Within really shouldn’t count. But we’ll get to those shortly. I’m ending with these two movies because they are perfect examples of how both not to make a video game movie and how to do it perfectly.

The Good: Regardless of anything, the graphics for both movies are nothing short of stunning. Forget The Polar Express, these movies were screwed out of recognition for their simply beautiful CGI. Now, as for Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children… that is how you do a Video Game Movie. Sure, they might have been doing it to cash in, but it seemed purely fan service. Every important character was there, it picked up soon after the game ended, and the story (while there isn’t much of one) is pretty cool. The voice acting, believe it or not, is done really nicely, too (with one exception). Oh, and the music is amazingly beautiful. A large portion is remixed from the game, but the game music was beautiful anyway. Finally, the action in is some of the coolest, most badass action I’ve ever seen in an animated movie (and I do watch anime). As for anything good about Spirits Within… well… the story was good, and it had a lot of really good voice actors (Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, James Woods, Keith David, Alec Baldwin, Ming-Na).

The Bad: Well, the only ‘bad’ goes to Advent Children, as most of the rest of Spirits Within would be under the next category. So anyway, Advent Children’s only bad side is that it really is a fan-service movie. If you haven’t played the game, you’ll probably be incredibly lost into most of the stuff happening (as it is a sequel to the game). Well, you might not be incredibly lost, as there is a voice-over narration that explains almost every key point you need to know, but you won’t get the deeper meanings or a full understanding of everything happening. Also, what the hell is up with the American voice for Cait Sith? Why they hell does he sound like a drunken Irishman? Especially since he’s actually a robot controlled by Reeve, who is even voiced via telephone before Cait Sith shows up in the movie, and is not a drunken Irishman…

The Ugly: This is pretty simple. Spirits Within had absolutely nothing, nada, zip to do with Final Fantasy. The first Resident Evil movie had more to do with its source material than Spirits Within, which is sad. There was one connection… a dude named Cid… but it was even SPELLED wrong! In the movie, they spelled it Sid. The movie itself isn’t actually all that awful… but it’s no Final Fantasy. There’s nothing even remotely similar to a Final Fantasy story that would be in a game. They should have gone with the original title idea and named it ‘Gaia’ instead of trying to cash in on the FF brand. That way, it probably wouldn’t have been boycotted like it was, it would have made more money, and Squaresoft wouldn’t have bankrupted like it did and be forced to merge with their rival company to stay afloat to become Square-Enix (it’s ironic that Final Fantasy was the game to keep the company going in the first place, and the FF movie was what basically killed them).

Conclusion: So all in all, I would like to conclude with this: Uwe Boll, stop making movies, you horrible, horrible man. You’re ruining video games and movies simultaneously. That is all. Oh, and people need to make more movies like Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children.