Gamers have a tendency to look at Final Fantasy VII, Square Enix's classic role-playing game, through rose-colored glasses. It was a great game for its time—epic, dramatic, and fun to play—but it hardly qualifies as the Citizen Kane of the video game world, as many of its more ardent fans would have us believe. Role-playing games are about storytelling and character dynamism, and, in retrospect, Final Fantasy VII is full of simplistic motivations and none-too-subtle plot contrivances.

To get to the point, it's a weak foundation for a movie. But Final Fantasy VII's fanatics are legion in number, and vocal too. For that reason Square figured it might be profitable to produce a film that would act as an epilogue to the game. Ergo, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children; a walloping mess of a movie that fails to follow even the most basic video game storytelling tenets, let alone the principles of cinematic narrative. It's nothing more than a few massive boss fights cobbled together to serve as a vehicle to allow sentimental fans to see their cherished game characters one more time.

Unlike Square's previous attempt to crack Hollywood with the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children went straight to home video. Apparently distributor Sony Pictures learned a thing or two from the thud heard 'round the world when Square's first picture bombed theatres like the Enola Gay... and yet it was the second best-selling DVD the week it was released in North America; proof positive that fanatical gamers are not to be ignored or underestimated. However, it would be interesting to see how many of the people who rushed out to buy Advent Children, their minds awash with warm, fuzzy, decade-old visions of the game, were disappointed in what they saw.

The film is set two years after the events of the game. People are falling ill to a pandemic that, uh, leaves gray marks on your arms. No word on just how fast the illness moves, how painful it is, what other symptoms there might be, or how it eventually kills its host. We're just given the gray marks, a cursory explanation as to what causes them, and are expected to feel pity for those who suffer them. While we're on the subject of nasty gray things, there are also some bad guys with gray hair who want to resurrect Sephiroth, the villain from the game, who himself has a long gray mane.

Meanwhile, Cloud, the main protagonist from the game, shows up, and boy is he depressed. Not only is he infected by the gray mark disease, he's also still mourning the loss of Aeris, the heroine who, in the game, sacrificed herself to save her planet. Cloud is reclusive, and only reluctantly takes an active role in the battle against the gray-haired guys when Tifa, another returning character, enters the picture.

Once all the main players have been introduced, the movie does away with such silly things as dialogue and character development in favor of presenting battle after battle after battle. In fact, the last half of the film is essentially just one giant fight sequence, interrupted only by the introductions of a few other familiar Final Fantasy characters that make brief cameos.

This is where a critique of the story and storytelling methods would normally go. But there is no story to criticize. Advent Children's plot simply doesn't exist. As it stands, it's little more than a confusing quagmire of loose ends and unexplained events.

One might be tempted to think that the twenty-odd minute "Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII Story Digest" DVD bonus feature, a summary of the plot of Final Fantasy VII made using video from the actual game, would clear things up a bit. However, while it provides a bit of back-story for the movie's characters, it does little to explain what's going on in the film.

Instead, this "reminiscence" serves as a reminder of how far the Final Fantasy franchise—and games in general—have come. In case you've forgotten, the human looking character models and voice actors of more recent games in the series don't exist in Final Fantasy VII. Technology limitations of the time forced Square to rely on blocky graphics and pop-up text dialogue—dialogue, it's worth noting, that might be compelling to people with an eighth grade reading level but which is hardly satisfying to the adults most of us have become since playing the game nine years ago. As we've grown, so to has the quality of writing in our games; we're now regularly treated to games written by professional authors and Hollywood screenwriters as opposed to video game designers who fancy themselves storytellers.

Sadly, Advent Children's screenplay hardly improves upon the quality of the dialogue in the game. Not only is the story bland, the script is wholly unmemorable and lacks a single line worth quoting.

Adding to the narrative's many problems, Square cheaped on the English voice talent, making the film's two-dimensional characters even harder to believe, much less sympathize with. Unlike The Spirits Within, there are no Alec Baldwins or Steve Buscemis to float Advent Children's weak words; just wooden actors whose resumes include nothing more impressive than voice credits for a few video games. Complicating matters, the sound mixing on the English audio track is dreadful—I could hardly make out some characters while the voices of others forced me to hastily reach for my remote to turn down the volume for fear of waking the neighbors.

After all of these criticisms you might be wondering: does the film have any redeeming qualities at all? It does; the visuals are awe-inspiring. Virtually every single frame of Advent Children is a stunning achievement of CGI artistry, worthy of printing, framing, and hanging. The lengthy battles are brilliantly choreographed, featuring flabbergasting stunts with innovative camerawork. One scene, midway through, in which Cloud is battling three evil grayhairs in a forest is an excellent mishmash of Matrix cool and House of Flying Daggers beauty.

And the soundtrack, composed by video game music wunderkind Nobuo Uematsu, is a brilliant homage to music heard in the original game (the occasional super corny heavy metal guitar riff excepted).

But stylish battles and powerful music don't make a movie. In fact, Final Fantasy: Advent Children's narrative is so simplistic and underdeveloped that it would hardly work as a glorified introduction or concluding cinema within a game. The creative ability of Square's artistic team is irrefutable, but they must start searching for writers who understand character development, story arcs, and the importance of having an underlying logic for the universe their characters inhabit if they want their movie division to achieve any real success. Until then, films like this will fail to appeal to anyone other than franchise super fans.