Thoughts on Avent Children
Cracks knuckles together. OK, here we go. My thoughts on Advent Children.
No Spoiler Section.
Do you have favorite food? A treat you really, really love? A fresh, juicy piece of fruit, a great cup of coffee, or that hot fudge sundae? The stuff that makes your mouth water just looking at it? Advent Children is like that. And you take a nice bite, or loving sip and it really tastes so good, just like you hoped it would.
But that one bite or sip is all you get.
And that’s Advent Children. Beautiful, yummy… and not enough…
Now for the Spoilers.
Let’s start with some world specific details. Apparently it is now possible for someone to take a truck load of kids and drive from Midgar to the Forgotten City, despite the fact that the locations are on two different continents. And it takes less than a day.
Bahamut… apparently Cloud went off to Spira and pulled a Pokemon catch of the Aeon version of Bahamut, because folks… FF7 summons don’t act like that. Not. At. All. You call them, they shoot off one attack and then leave. (Even Knights of the Round’s multi-hit combo is a “single” action. They don’t stick around and engage in battle.)
The characters. Some of them were wonderful, great performances, some of them were blink and you’ll miss them. And a few made me want to scream.
Rufus… should have stayed dead. Reeve could have done that role and should have. He’s not beyond deception and he does have a real, vested interest in saving the planet. Oh, Rufus was “cool” but I still can’t stand the SOB. Instead we never even get to see Reeve, save for his brief alias appearance as Cait and one phone message to Cloud. Hopefully Dirge of Cerberus will treat him better.
Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Nanaki, Cait, Tseng, Elena… thanks for the walk on appearances. Bye!
Vincent… heh, cool and broody, but the poor man needs a fashion redesign. Just about everybody else got an upgraded appearance, so why is he still in those god awful shoes? Had some very sweet and badass moments and his lack of a phone provided a brief grin.
Tifa. Wish they could have made up there minds on her. She keeps flipping from kickass warrior to cringing woman who can’t seem to budge a single unresponsive kid. And that whole deal with her seeing Sephiroth return and her just going… naw, let’s let Cloud handle it all… he needs closure. WTF woman??? And her little speech to Cloud about him trying his best… honey, really. You can feed that snow job to the kids, and even they didn’t really buy it.
Oh yes, speaking of the kids… could just have just about smacked Marlene. Whingy, whiny, manipulative little bitch. Cloud has bigger problems than whether or not he’s paying attention to you. And really good going on handing the bad guys all of Cloud’s mastered materia.
Denzel… what a waste of character time. Didn’t care about the rug rat, boy was a fool. Wnaders off with the bad guys, drinks tainted black water, thinks his little punk self can take on Bahamut… and never stops whining for Cloud to come and pay attention to him too.
And who the hell though it was a good idea to let Cloud be a guardian for orphans anyways? The man has more issues than a magazine subscription. He was a lonely, insecure child who was an outcast, as a teenager he suffered from feelings of failure, he spent five years being tortured mentally and physically and then had a total and complete mental breakdown. Let’s hand over some kids to him. That is really the last thing Cloud needs.
Now… I do like parts of Advent Children. Tifa and Loz, from the moment he walked into the church to the phone ringing is my most watched part of the film. It’s beautiful, the music, the fight, the scenery… this is that bite of delicious chocolate, a sip of the perfect mocha.
Cloud and Aeris talking to each other in little flashes, how she seems to be the only person who really cares about what Cloud is thinking and feeling.
Zack’s sword planted at the place where he died.
Zack and Aeris at the end, looking in on Cloud asking if he’ll be all right now.
The Reno and Rude show.
And why haven’t I talked much about Sephiroth and the trio? The fights of course were gorgeous, but Yazoo was barely on my radar at all… he fought a bit and drove a truck… Loz I mentioned earlier is part of my favorite sequence with Tifa and Kadaj… meh, he was just there to bring Seph back.
Coulda left all of that behind and actually come up with a better plot IMO. But they had to have Sephiroth.
Where were the chocobos?
Cloud’s new sword was very cool.
The Last Order was light years better.
But hey, I’m a Zack girl at heart.
I’ll purchase Advent Children and savor my choice little bites. But I do wish that they’d given me a bigger meal.
No Spoiler Section.
Do you have favorite food? A treat you really, really love? A fresh, juicy piece of fruit, a great cup of coffee, or that hot fudge sundae? The stuff that makes your mouth water just looking at it? Advent Children is like that. And you take a nice bite, or loving sip and it really tastes so good, just like you hoped it would.
But that one bite or sip is all you get.
And that’s Advent Children. Beautiful, yummy… and not enough…
Now for the Spoilers.
Let’s start with some world specific details. Apparently it is now possible for someone to take a truck load of kids and drive from Midgar to the Forgotten City, despite the fact that the locations are on two different continents. And it takes less than a day.
Bahamut… apparently Cloud went off to Spira and pulled a Pokemon catch of the Aeon version of Bahamut, because folks… FF7 summons don’t act like that. Not. At. All. You call them, they shoot off one attack and then leave. (Even Knights of the Round’s multi-hit combo is a “single” action. They don’t stick around and engage in battle.)
The characters. Some of them were wonderful, great performances, some of them were blink and you’ll miss them. And a few made me want to scream.
Rufus… should have stayed dead. Reeve could have done that role and should have. He’s not beyond deception and he does have a real, vested interest in saving the planet. Oh, Rufus was “cool” but I still can’t stand the SOB. Instead we never even get to see Reeve, save for his brief alias appearance as Cait and one phone message to Cloud. Hopefully Dirge of Cerberus will treat him better.
Barret, Cid, Yuffie, Nanaki, Cait, Tseng, Elena… thanks for the walk on appearances. Bye!
Vincent… heh, cool and broody, but the poor man needs a fashion redesign. Just about everybody else got an upgraded appearance, so why is he still in those god awful shoes? Had some very sweet and badass moments and his lack of a phone provided a brief grin.
Tifa. Wish they could have made up there minds on her. She keeps flipping from kickass warrior to cringing woman who can’t seem to budge a single unresponsive kid. And that whole deal with her seeing Sephiroth return and her just going… naw, let’s let Cloud handle it all… he needs closure. WTF woman??? And her little speech to Cloud about him trying his best… honey, really. You can feed that snow job to the kids, and even they didn’t really buy it.
Oh yes, speaking of the kids… could just have just about smacked Marlene. Whingy, whiny, manipulative little bitch. Cloud has bigger problems than whether or not he’s paying attention to you. And really good going on handing the bad guys all of Cloud’s mastered materia.
Denzel… what a waste of character time. Didn’t care about the rug rat, boy was a fool. Wnaders off with the bad guys, drinks tainted black water, thinks his little punk self can take on Bahamut… and never stops whining for Cloud to come and pay attention to him too.
And who the hell though it was a good idea to let Cloud be a guardian for orphans anyways? The man has more issues than a magazine subscription. He was a lonely, insecure child who was an outcast, as a teenager he suffered from feelings of failure, he spent five years being tortured mentally and physically and then had a total and complete mental breakdown. Let’s hand over some kids to him. That is really the last thing Cloud needs.
Now… I do like parts of Advent Children. Tifa and Loz, from the moment he walked into the church to the phone ringing is my most watched part of the film. It’s beautiful, the music, the fight, the scenery… this is that bite of delicious chocolate, a sip of the perfect mocha.
Cloud and Aeris talking to each other in little flashes, how she seems to be the only person who really cares about what Cloud is thinking and feeling.
Zack’s sword planted at the place where he died.
Zack and Aeris at the end, looking in on Cloud asking if he’ll be all right now.
The Reno and Rude show.
And why haven’t I talked much about Sephiroth and the trio? The fights of course were gorgeous, but Yazoo was barely on my radar at all… he fought a bit and drove a truck… Loz I mentioned earlier is part of my favorite sequence with Tifa and Kadaj… meh, he was just there to bring Seph back.
Coulda left all of that behind and actually come up with a better plot IMO. But they had to have Sephiroth.
Where were the chocobos?
Cloud’s new sword was very cool.
The Last Order was light years better.
But hey, I’m a Zack girl at heart.
I’ll purchase Advent Children and savor my choice little bites. But I do wish that they’d given me a bigger meal.