My Brain Hurts

Sat down last night to watch Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. My brain is still leaking out my ears.

I spent--nay, some may say wasted--many hours playing the original Final Fantasy VII game back on the old trusty Playstation One. So I was looking forward to seeing this film, after the beautiful but disappointing Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within back in 2001. Well, the problems with that film--that it was boring, namely--have been rectified here. You won't be bored. Confused as hell? Oh yeah. Count on that.

The film makes very little effort in actually explaining the backstory. Either you've played Final Fantasy VII or you haven't. If you have, then you stand a better chance of understanding who everyone is and what is kinda going on. If you haven't, just enjoy the pretty pictures.

And it is pretty. The action scenes are astounding achievements in computer animation, but they're so damn fast that it's like the producers are counting on you to buy the DVD simply so you can slow things down and see what's happening. That sense of awe that so many FF cutscenes engender are in evidence in almost every shot, so it's hard to not walk away from this feeling impressed. But the story?

Look, I've played the game, and even I was wondering what was going on. Something about the planet making everyone sick (Final Fantasy has always been less than subtle with its environmental messages)and how the evil Sephiroth (the bad guy from the game, thought dead) might come back. And lots of motorcycles, swords, and gravity ignoring martial arts.

So now I'm thinking of maybe replaying the game. After I finish Morrowind, Tales of Symphonia, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights......