A Warhog appeared on my front lawn today. Perplexed at what it could possibly want (and also the fact that it had clearly strayed miles away from its natural habitat-for Warhogs, as we all know, only live near battlefields, and the area around my house had not been one since the Great Shoe Cataclysm of '05), I proceeded to ask it questions.
Coming up from its right flank, I made sure to position myself in its blind spots, as Warhogs are prone to attack those who stand directly in front or behind them. I had learned that in 1st grade, the same year my teacher left for the great war.
"What," I said in what I hoped was a good baritone, "is your favourite tuna flavour?" Now this question might appear to be only superficially linked to my original intention to find out what the animal was doing on my front lawn, but any who have taken the deep-thought meditation lessons by the monk Po Shin Tzu (who also left for the great war) in the Tibetan village of Dru Mai Fing-hos will know otherwise.
The Warhog merely ignored me, it seemed to be fixated on my upper floor window. Its slimy eyes were secreting a gooey solution. I repeated the question, this time holding my hands up high, without realizing that I was still standing in its blind spot.
Its blind spot saw me and tried to alert the Warhog. Foolishly, before leaving for the war my teacher had never taught us that Warhogs had sentient blind spots. Luckily the Warhog still seemed preoccupied with my upper floor window, to the point where it suddenly stood up on its hindquaters and began to snort an unearthly yell. I cannot quite describe to this day what it sounds like, save to say that it would not be surprising to open the beast's leathery stomach only to find an entire litter of kittens being beaten up by a grand-mama.
I should be thankful that the shoe salesman arrived, at that moment, for his daily rounds. He stopped right in front of my house, and did not even pay attention to the Warhog, who at that moment had slowly moved forward, stepping on my venus fly traps and rose bushes. "Good day sir", said the salesman, "your son's shoes are ready." The blind spot, moved slowly above the Warhog and focused itself on the salesman.
Then it started to twitch between me and the salesman, apparently confused as to which threat was more immediate to its still-braying master. Astonishingly, all of this became a moot point when the Warhog leapt into the air and crashed through my window.
"My God!" I yelled, perplexed. "Why on earth would it do such a thing?"
"Egads man!" Answered the salesman, panicking and dropping my son's shoes. "I've only ever seen that reaction during the Great War itself. Run!" Following his own advice, he became a black speck upon the horizon of my neighbourhood within seconds.
I quickly bent down to pick up the shoes and ran inside. The warhog was now in my son's room. Climbing up the stairs as fast as I could, past the picture of the monk in the hallway, I stood at the door. My son was sitting on the floor playing with his toy soldiers, many of which had large silver shoes, seemingly unaware of the great lumbering beast gazing intently at the toy soldiers.
Very carefully I tip-toed into my son's room, trying to avoid the Warhog's intense stare. The feverish beginnings of a plan began to formulate in my mind even as I trembled in fear. I placed my index finger in front of my mouth to indicate to my boy that he should remain quiet. With my other hand I very carefully lifted his new shoes out of their box. Reaching my son, I grabbed him with one arm and watched as the Warhog's glare followed the silver-shoed toys falling to the floor. I threw the real shoes out the window. Behold, it worked! The distracted Warhog oafishly jumped back down to follow this new prey.
Sadly as I reveled in my joy my eyes fell back on the windowsill and with dread I remembered that I had not accounted for the creature's blind spot, which floated back up to the opening in the room.
It was then, that my son moved back to the toys. "I must finish the war father", he said innocently, "only then will the beast be satisfied." He bent down and started to move the soldiers around. They looked like silly little men dancing round and round in their over-sized shoes. The blind spot was observing, like a dance instructor watching its pupil, trying to follow each move, each pattern on the checkered floor.
Moments ticked by like those strange mosquitoes that flutter around at summer camps but never quite seem to sting anyone. There was tension in the room, here in this little space where it seemed the fate of the world was to be decided by one child's whim. The blind spot frowned. Then it looked up in boredom. Then it stared at me as if pleading me to tell my son to finish up more quickly because it had other fronts to visit, other grammatical and semantic impossibilities to engage in.
"Sole," I called out my boy's name. "Sole, I think it's time to decide who wins." However it was clear he was in another world, consumed by his imagination. I moved in and tried to hurry along the proceedings, grabbing some of the toy soldiers myself. The blind spot clicked its tongue in sharp reprimand. I let go. Evidently this was a game for one.
My son at last pushed the soldiers into each other for one final joust. Some fell. Others stood victorious. The blind spot made some gesture that I could only interpret as nodding somewhat approvingly. It whistled. Its master leapt back up, still holding the mashed remains of a loafer in its gaping maw.
To my surprise, with a deft movement of its tusks, the Warhog saddled my son on its back. The blind spot tucked itself into Sole's front shirt pocket. My boy looked at me in fright as the Warhog jumped back down on my front lawn and galoped away.
Stupefied I watched the three of them round the corner of my street as they left. It only hit me then. There had been no cosmic battle deciding the fate of the world in my son's room. The Warhog and the blind spot were simply out on a recruitment drive. And Sole had passed the test...
THE END!
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Canadian House divided over what animal best symbolizes country: cannot stand, crawl, slither or buzz about giddily
(from the Globe and Snail, February 11, 2007)
Canadian politicians nearly came to blows yesterday afternoon in a heated outstanding Parliamentary debate that almost threw the country into general elections, barely a year after the Conservatives formed Canada's new government.
At issue, however, were not trivial problems of the day such as the war in Afghanistan or global warming, but rather a question that strikes at the core of every single Canadian: what animal best represents the nation?
"Canada has the stockiness, the ferocity, the courage, and the same indomitable will to live and survive as a wolverine," insisted Foreign Affairs Minister John Mckay, echoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's newly publicized opinion.
"But how could you possibly want to associate us with an animal that smells so bad it's often called a 'skunk bear'"? shouted NDP mascot affairs critic Richard Moorgrove from across the room, proving his mastery of wikipedia.
The New Democratic Party maintained that the country is more akin to a rabbit, due to its peaceful ways. Canada's proud heritage of recycling programs was also likened to the rodent's typical eating of its own crap.
Stéphane Dion showed extreme criticism towards changing Canada's emblem from a beaver. "With its resourcefulness in building dams, the beaver most resembles the average Canadian's positive, can-do attitude and love of working," the Liberal Party leader said.
Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard lost no time in stating here was another proof that Quebec should separate, repeating his claim from last fall that French Canadians were lazy bums and thus evidently not compatible with the beaver.
Though the beaver has long remained Canada's premier mascot, the sensitive question aroused interest at a recent press conference by Harper comemorating his government's year-long iron grip on Parliament, where he said that he thought of Canada more as a wolverine.
The ferocious rodent can grow as big as a dog, does not hibernate, and has strong jaws that allow it to chew on hardened carcasses of-ironically among others-mooses, which appear on the Canadian quarter.
Canadian politicians nearly came to blows yesterday afternoon in a heated outstanding Parliamentary debate that almost threw the country into general elections, barely a year after the Conservatives formed Canada's new government.
At issue, however, were not trivial problems of the day such as the war in Afghanistan or global warming, but rather a question that strikes at the core of every single Canadian: what animal best represents the nation?
"Canada has the stockiness, the ferocity, the courage, and the same indomitable will to live and survive as a wolverine," insisted Foreign Affairs Minister John Mckay, echoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's newly publicized opinion.
"But how could you possibly want to associate us with an animal that smells so bad it's often called a 'skunk bear'"? shouted NDP mascot affairs critic Richard Moorgrove from across the room, proving his mastery of wikipedia.
The New Democratic Party maintained that the country is more akin to a rabbit, due to its peaceful ways. Canada's proud heritage of recycling programs was also likened to the rodent's typical eating of its own crap.
Stéphane Dion showed extreme criticism towards changing Canada's emblem from a beaver. "With its resourcefulness in building dams, the beaver most resembles the average Canadian's positive, can-do attitude and love of working," the Liberal Party leader said.
Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard lost no time in stating here was another proof that Quebec should separate, repeating his claim from last fall that French Canadians were lazy bums and thus evidently not compatible with the beaver.
Though the beaver has long remained Canada's premier mascot, the sensitive question aroused interest at a recent press conference by Harper comemorating his government's year-long iron grip on Parliament, where he said that he thought of Canada more as a wolverine.
The ferocious rodent can grow as big as a dog, does not hibernate, and has strong jaws that allow it to chew on hardened carcasses of-ironically among others-mooses, which appear on the Canadian quarter.
It is unknown whether Stephen Harper was purposely
being ironic: wolverines are the largest members of the weasel family.
A Comic book conspiracy?
However, Harper's metaphor has come under fire from more than just his political rivals. Professor Eaton Von Shaburg, who teaches communications at the University of Ottawa, told the Globe and Snail that he feared this was part of an insidious marketing campaign. He accused the Conservative government of being in bed with Marvel Comics, the US-based company that publishes the illustrated adventures of popular superhero Wolverine, also a Canadian.
"If you think about it, X-3 (the 2006 movie starring Wolverine and his teammates, the X-Men), was the critically least successful film featuring the character in Canada yet," Shaburg said. "Producers are afraid that moviegoers will be wise to any subsequent films starring the character, so what they do is gradually start to pervade media with the word 'wolverine' every chance they get. The more people hear the word, the more they're likely to go to a movie featuring him. It's the same reason Stephen Harper drinks Coca Cola, only this is a lot more sinister since it's done in a clandestine fashion."
What does Harper stand to gain? "Well you see already: entire Parliamentary sessions on the matter, completely distracting everyone from the Conservatives' major cock-up on dossiers like the environment and the Middle East," said Shaburg.
"I cannot tell you how wrong-headed the idea that the Conservative Party is associated with Marvel Comics is," said Stephen Harper during a press scrum when confronted with the idea, before quickly shooting a web at one of the Hill buildings and swinging away.
Dictatorial rabbits...
The rabbit image espoused by the NDP has not gone without criticism either. An NDP MP who wished to remain anonymous told the Snail that the party was largely unhappy with the choice, but leader Jack Layton was threatening to kick people who disagreed out. "In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason why Layton is trying to impose this on us is because he is, in fact, a disguised rabbit himself." The MP had no evidence to back this up, but said he would try to provide the Snail with photographs of Layton taking a piss on a pile of woodshavings.
A consensus was not reached after yesterday's debate, but insiders on the Hill say the issue is likely to pop up again soon.
The outstanding debate was the first on a Saturday since the day the House of Commons met to discuss the proper age for children to start carrying cell phones.
-30-
For more on Harper's original description of Canada as a wolverine, head to:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=da802f13-3fe6-49f2-a661-a527947e8104
Friday, February 2, 2007
Smitten by the Mitten Kitten
I lay there, cut and bleedin'
Smitten by the mitten kitten,
a mitten! kitten! t'was no ordinary kitten,
but a mitten kitten...a mitten kitten...
I awoke, sitting in the kitchen,
where i was smitten by a kitten,
by a kitten with a mitten,
by mitten on a kitten...
Not far from me, on a pile of linen,
sat the mitten kitten,
no ordinary kitten that was sittin'
on a pile of dirty linen...
Linen kitten, mitten kitten
why are you, me hatin' ?-
to smite me with your mitten,
oh, ruler of the dirty linen
Smitten, Written, Smitten, Written -
that is the job of the mitten kitten
said the ruler of the linen,
dirty pile of kitchen linen...
He was writing a story -
I was smitten by a kitty
t'was no ordinary kitten,
but a kitten with a mitten...
I was tasked by the mitten,
to clean the dirty linen!
For I, cleaner of the linen,
was smitten by the kitten...
Smitten by the mitten kitten,
a mitten! kitten! t'was no ordinary kitten,
but a mitten kitten...a mitten kitten...
I awoke, sitting in the kitchen,
where i was smitten by a kitten,
by a kitten with a mitten,
by mitten on a kitten...
Not far from me, on a pile of linen,
sat the mitten kitten,
no ordinary kitten that was sittin'
on a pile of dirty linen...
Linen kitten, mitten kitten
why are you, me hatin' ?-
to smite me with your mitten,
oh, ruler of the dirty linen
Smitten, Written, Smitten, Written -
that is the job of the mitten kitten
said the ruler of the linen,
dirty pile of kitchen linen...
He was writing a story -
I was smitten by a kitty
t'was no ordinary kitten,
but a kitten with a mitten...
I was tasked by the mitten,
to clean the dirty linen!
For I, cleaner of the linen,
was smitten by the kitten...
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Advent Children Bash
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will delight two groups of people: hard-core Final Fantasy VII fans and enlightened futurists who have been predicting that video games and movies will slowly merge to form one universal, all-encompassing, productivity-decimating audiovisual medium. Anyone else is likely to ejaculate over the super-pretty visuals but understand little of the rather baffling plot.
You see, Advent Children is a sequel to a popular video game called Final Fantasy VII, except that it’s a CGI movie with wildly hairy characters instead of box-shaped protagonists. There is a “Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII” feature kindly provided by the producers of the movie (Square-Enix, who are behind the games as well). Unfortunately, all it does is make you realize how difficult it is to summarize a video game that spans four CDs into ten minutes of prologue and so this reviewer thought it better to watch the film instead.
Just one of several Vidal Sassoon models that lent their talents to the movie
Easier said than done. It opens with a flashback sequence that at first glance renders the impenetrable “Reminiscence” feature useless. A little girl explains to us that a realm called Midgar was once attacked by a Calamity from the Sky named Mother, also known as the Jenova Project (or a meteor in normal English) that tried to destroy it. Yes even meteors have agendas these days. Apparently, a corporation named Shinra somehow saved the planet, but simultaneously harnessed all of its Mako (or is that Materia?), a form of energy necessary for its survival. Shinra used Materia or Mako plus the remnants of Mother to create a very powerful breed of soldiers, imaginatively titled Soldiers, to enforce its will on remaining Midgarians. Shinra continued its evil planetary reign until one of its Soldiers, Cloud Strife, betrayed them and joined a rebellious resistance to bring down the company. Simultaneously Cloud battled another Soldier gone rogue, Shampoo commercial icon Sephiroth who wanted nothing less than to destroy the world and become the ultimate form of energy, killing Cloud’s beautiful girlfriend Aerith and others along the way.
Ultimately, Cloud and co. killed Sephiroth, brought down Shinra and saved Midgar. Oh and there was something somewhere in there about Cloud’s Soldier friend Zach dying too.
Unfortunately, this is about all that one can understand before the little girl narrator falls into that horrible dialect of English known as badly translated Japanese and babbles something about the price to pay to trade sadness for more sadness. One imagines that any economics or business school must not be the strongest of branches at Midgar College.
Many inhabitants of Midgar, particularly those dewy-eyed brooding children, are fallen sick with a mysterious illness called Geo-Stigma. Ex-soldier Cloud Strife, who now apparently spends his days motoring along gorgeous sun-dappled highways, is under a similar predicament. On one such trip he is suddenly attacked by the film’s three main antagonists, black-leather clad, decidedly unthreatening, somewhat effeminate pseudo-Soldiers called Remnants. Between pimping and preening for the camera, their leader Kadaj seems to think that Cloud is aware of the remains of Mother’s whereabouts, but the hero tells them to sod off as they engage on a motorcycle-mounted swordfight…which looks really cool until you see the same thing over and over again ad nauseam by the end of the movie.
Cloud escapes the baddies and they go on to bother other people. One of these is the crippled former president of Shinra. When he pleads ignorance of Mother’s whereabouts, one of Kadaj’s goons wanders off after Tifa, an old friend of Cloud’s who lives in a church along with the opening scene’s little girl narrator. For no apparent reason, the goon takes off with the little girl.
Sure his face looks smoother than a baby’s ass, but look at the blade he’s got to use. Would
you honestly do that to yourself every morning?
Even more confusingly, all of the Geo-Stigma suffering children are kidnapped by Kadaj’s posse as well, and brought to a forest that seems entirely composed of Styrofoam. Here he hypnotizes them by going off on a crazy rant about how the planet wants to eat everyone (!)
Cloud Strife catches wind of the kidnapping, and after having a few words with Tifa, Shinra and his goons, decides to go rescue her.
Unsurprisingly, a fight ensues between Cloud and the three leathery dudes.
Surprisingly, the children disappear off-screen in a single frame.
Even more surprisingly, Cloud Strife loses his cellular phone in the ensuing fisticuffs. This is supposed to be important since, for such a fast-paced movie, the camera pauses rather slowly on the fate of Strife’s phone as it falls to the depths of a body of water. Perhaps some Hobbit-like creatures will find it one day and it will become a central weapon in an epic movie that will actually be decipherable to more than five people.
He’s about to get kicked in the face but still can’t get his eyes off her chest.
Most surprisingly, Cloud Strife is rescued by what appears to be a large, swirling red cape from his three opponents. The Spawn knock-off’s name is Vincent, and he also happens to have rescued Sadness-for-Sadness girl.
Unfortunately, if you think Vincent’s appearance is too quick and convenient, the rest of the movie will probably be a blur of nothingness. Basically, in a final bid to find Mother, the three bad guys attack the main city in Midgar the next day. The two stooges park the still-hypnotized children (can you blame them? Who can resist a charisma-dripping speech about how an entire planet is after them?) in front of a fountain and randomly create panic among bystanders. Probably not the most productive way to find the remains of a meteorite, but what do I know, I never played the game.
As for Kadaj, he corners M. Shinra in a high building and demands an explanation (so do we, buddy, so do we). When this doesn’t happen, the enraged villain summons a giant dragon out of the sky, which scares the crud out of the bewildered citizens below, who begin to run circles around a roundabout. For people who have survived planetary disasters before, Midgarians don’t have very good contingency plans.
Cloud and his friends show up to save the day, and they even get helped from five more of their old buddies from Final Fantasy VII. These guys don’t really have names but you won’t have any difficulties recognizing Jax from Mortal Kombat II, Madonna’s Material Girl spelled Materia Girl to avoid legal consequences, and a rather unremarkable guy who gets a big stick to hit people. It must suck to be that guy. Jax gets metal arms and machine guns, Materia Girl a war fan and a bunch of colourful balls, Cloud a wicked motorcycle and some swords…and he gets a stick.
In one of the movie’s most awe-inspiring moments, Cloud jumps up and up and up, getting boosts from all of his friends to soar high enough to cut down the dragon for good…and in one of the movie’s most confusing moments (that’s saying a lot, too), the dragon throws a fireball at Cloud…which becomes his dead girlfriend, gives him words of wisdom, and the final boost necessary to launch himself high enough to kill the beast.
Now take a moment to think about this folks. The dragon is fighting Cloud, right? It throws a fireball at him. Even if we are to believe that its transformation into his dead girlfriend was purely Cloud’s imagination, how does the fire not actually burn him? Better yet, if it is all in his head, how does he actually get a real boost from her?
…Really upset at this turn of events, Kadaj throws a spasm, to which Shinra responds by revealing that he can actually still stand, and that he he’s had the remains of Mother in a small wooden box on him all along. He throws it over the window, causing Kadaj to jump after it. Shinra, seemingly expressing a wish to become a real cripple, leaps off the skyscraper himself to shoot at Kadaj. Cloud, noticing the trend, joins them for the plummet.
A short fight between Cloud and Kadaj later, the latter uses the box to become Sephiroth reborn. Apparently this was his secret plan all along, since Sephiroth has better hair, a slightly manlier voice, a cooler sword, and logically would land more lucrative modeling contracts with leather designers.
There is…you guessed it…a sword fight between the two men, and Sephiroth obviously loses. This happily and inexplicably translates into silver rain that somehow cures all the geo-stigma on the planet, and as the heroes celebrate, Cloud Strife catches another vision, this time of Aerith and Zach smiling at him and disappearing in a halo of light. “Finally I’m not alone,” he thinks wistfully and grins, which is a paradoxical choice of monologue to have while watching the ghosts of your dead girlfriend and very best friend fade away, but as far as dialogue goes, there is worse in this flick.
Advent Children is not, despite what the title may have you believe, for children. There is a lot of violence in it. However, it’s not for most adults either, as there is little in the way of an entertaining story. In fact, if there is one more group to add to the two minorities outlined at the beginning of the article that would benefit from watching this, that would be Anglophone students majoring in Japanese translation. You know, just to sort of understand what not to do with film scripts.
DON’T cut this guy off in traffic.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will delight two groups of people: hard-core Final Fantasy VII fans and enlightened futurists who have been predicting that video games and movies will slowly merge to form one universal, all-encompassing, productivity-decimating audiovisual medium. Anyone else is likely to ejaculate over the super-pretty visuals but understand little of the rather baffling plot.
You see, Advent Children is a sequel to a popular video game called Final Fantasy VII, except that it’s a CGI movie with wildly hairy characters instead of box-shaped protagonists. There is a “Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII” feature kindly provided by the producers of the movie (Square-Enix, who are behind the games as well). Unfortunately, all it does is make you realize how difficult it is to summarize a video game that spans four CDs into ten minutes of prologue and so this reviewer thought it better to watch the film instead.
Just one of several Vidal Sassoon models that lent their talents to the movie
Easier said than done. It opens with a flashback sequence that at first glance renders the impenetrable “Reminiscence” feature useless. A little girl explains to us that a realm called Midgar was once attacked by a Calamity from the Sky named Mother, also known as the Jenova Project (or a meteor in normal English) that tried to destroy it. Yes even meteors have agendas these days. Apparently, a corporation named Shinra somehow saved the planet, but simultaneously harnessed all of its Mako (or is that Materia?), a form of energy necessary for its survival. Shinra used Materia or Mako plus the remnants of Mother to create a very powerful breed of soldiers, imaginatively titled Soldiers, to enforce its will on remaining Midgarians. Shinra continued its evil planetary reign until one of its Soldiers, Cloud Strife, betrayed them and joined a rebellious resistance to bring down the company. Simultaneously Cloud battled another Soldier gone rogue, Shampoo commercial icon Sephiroth who wanted nothing less than to destroy the world and become the ultimate form of energy, killing Cloud’s beautiful girlfriend Aerith and others along the way.
Ultimately, Cloud and co. killed Sephiroth, brought down Shinra and saved Midgar. Oh and there was something somewhere in there about Cloud’s Soldier friend Zach dying too.
Unfortunately, this is about all that one can understand before the little girl narrator falls into that horrible dialect of English known as badly translated Japanese and babbles something about the price to pay to trade sadness for more sadness. One imagines that any economics or business school must not be the strongest of branches at Midgar College.
Many inhabitants of Midgar, particularly those dewy-eyed brooding children, are fallen sick with a mysterious illness called Geo-Stigma. Ex-soldier Cloud Strife, who now apparently spends his days motoring along gorgeous sun-dappled highways, is under a similar predicament. On one such trip he is suddenly attacked by the film’s three main antagonists, black-leather clad, decidedly unthreatening, somewhat effeminate pseudo-Soldiers called Remnants. Between pimping and preening for the camera, their leader Kadaj seems to think that Cloud is aware of the remains of Mother’s whereabouts, but the hero tells them to sod off as they engage on a motorcycle-mounted swordfight…which looks really cool until you see the same thing over and over again ad nauseam by the end of the movie.
Cloud escapes the baddies and they go on to bother other people. One of these is the crippled former president of Shinra. When he pleads ignorance of Mother’s whereabouts, one of Kadaj’s goons wanders off after Tifa, an old friend of Cloud’s who lives in a church along with the opening scene’s little girl narrator. For no apparent reason, the goon takes off with the little girl.
Sure his face looks smoother than a baby’s ass, but look at the blade he’s got to use. Would
you honestly do that to yourself every morning?
Even more confusingly, all of the Geo-Stigma suffering children are kidnapped by Kadaj’s posse as well, and brought to a forest that seems entirely composed of Styrofoam. Here he hypnotizes them by going off on a crazy rant about how the planet wants to eat everyone (!)
Cloud Strife catches wind of the kidnapping, and after having a few words with Tifa, Shinra and his goons, decides to go rescue her.
Unsurprisingly, a fight ensues between Cloud and the three leathery dudes.
Surprisingly, the children disappear off-screen in a single frame.
Even more surprisingly, Cloud Strife loses his cellular phone in the ensuing fisticuffs. This is supposed to be important since, for such a fast-paced movie, the camera pauses rather slowly on the fate of Strife’s phone as it falls to the depths of a body of water. Perhaps some Hobbit-like creatures will find it one day and it will become a central weapon in an epic movie that will actually be decipherable to more than five people.
He’s about to get kicked in the face but still can’t get his eyes off her chest.
Most surprisingly, Cloud Strife is rescued by what appears to be a large, swirling red cape from his three opponents. The Spawn knock-off’s name is Vincent, and he also happens to have rescued Sadness-for-Sadness girl.
Unfortunately, if you think Vincent’s appearance is too quick and convenient, the rest of the movie will probably be a blur of nothingness. Basically, in a final bid to find Mother, the three bad guys attack the main city in Midgar the next day. The two stooges park the still-hypnotized children (can you blame them? Who can resist a charisma-dripping speech about how an entire planet is after them?) in front of a fountain and randomly create panic among bystanders. Probably not the most productive way to find the remains of a meteorite, but what do I know, I never played the game.
As for Kadaj, he corners M. Shinra in a high building and demands an explanation (so do we, buddy, so do we). When this doesn’t happen, the enraged villain summons a giant dragon out of the sky, which scares the crud out of the bewildered citizens below, who begin to run circles around a roundabout. For people who have survived planetary disasters before, Midgarians don’t have very good contingency plans.
Cloud and his friends show up to save the day, and they even get helped from five more of their old buddies from Final Fantasy VII. These guys don’t really have names but you won’t have any difficulties recognizing Jax from Mortal Kombat II, Madonna’s Material Girl spelled Materia Girl to avoid legal consequences, and a rather unremarkable guy who gets a big stick to hit people. It must suck to be that guy. Jax gets metal arms and machine guns, Materia Girl a war fan and a bunch of colourful balls, Cloud a wicked motorcycle and some swords…and he gets a stick.
In one of the movie’s most awe-inspiring moments, Cloud jumps up and up and up, getting boosts from all of his friends to soar high enough to cut down the dragon for good…and in one of the movie’s most confusing moments (that’s saying a lot, too), the dragon throws a fireball at Cloud…which becomes his dead girlfriend, gives him words of wisdom, and the final boost necessary to launch himself high enough to kill the beast.
Now take a moment to think about this folks. The dragon is fighting Cloud, right? It throws a fireball at him. Even if we are to believe that its transformation into his dead girlfriend was purely Cloud’s imagination, how does the fire not actually burn him? Better yet, if it is all in his head, how does he actually get a real boost from her?
…Really upset at this turn of events, Kadaj throws a spasm, to which Shinra responds by revealing that he can actually still stand, and that he he’s had the remains of Mother in a small wooden box on him all along. He throws it over the window, causing Kadaj to jump after it. Shinra, seemingly expressing a wish to become a real cripple, leaps off the skyscraper himself to shoot at Kadaj. Cloud, noticing the trend, joins them for the plummet.
A short fight between Cloud and Kadaj later, the latter uses the box to become Sephiroth reborn. Apparently this was his secret plan all along, since Sephiroth has better hair, a slightly manlier voice, a cooler sword, and logically would land more lucrative modeling contracts with leather designers.
There is…you guessed it…a sword fight between the two men, and Sephiroth obviously loses. This happily and inexplicably translates into silver rain that somehow cures all the geo-stigma on the planet, and as the heroes celebrate, Cloud Strife catches another vision, this time of Aerith and Zach smiling at him and disappearing in a halo of light. “Finally I’m not alone,” he thinks wistfully and grins, which is a paradoxical choice of monologue to have while watching the ghosts of your dead girlfriend and very best friend fade away, but as far as dialogue goes, there is worse in this flick.
Advent Children is not, despite what the title may have you believe, for children. There is a lot of violence in it. However, it’s not for most adults either, as there is little in the way of an entertaining story. In fact, if there is one more group to add to the two minorities outlined at the beginning of the article that would benefit from watching this, that would be Anglophone students majoring in Japanese translation. You know, just to sort of understand what not to do with film scripts.
DON’T cut this guy off in traffic.
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