Sakaguchi's departure and Final Fantasy X-2's subsequent release (and inexplicable commercial success) got the ball rolling on Square's campaign to churn out endless waves of terrible spinoffs, sequels, prequels and remakes to games that stood up perfectly well on their own merits. Thanks guys!

The setting is a city named "Edge" on the outskirts of Midgar, where Cloud and Tifa apparently now live. Whey they choose to live in a depressing barren landscape next to the burned out ruins of a giant slum instead of somewhere nice is a mystery to me; guess Cloud's just stuck in his emo phase again. There's also a sub-plot about a disease named "Geostigma" that doesn't really go anywhere or affect much of anything.

Kadaj, Loz, Yazoo: We are throwaway villains, beware our blandness!

Cloud engages in a long, flashy battle with the three dorks using the most impractical weapon in the entirety of the series thus far - a buster sword that splits into seven smaller buster swords. Yes, I'm serious. Nevermind that he cannot possibly wield more than two of them at any given time, or that no explanation is ever given as to why he discarded his old weapon and started using this one instead. After a while the Throwaways get bored and leave abruptly.

Turks: Why did Square bring us back, anyway? Nobody gave a shit about us in the original game.
Cloud: What do you want?
Turks: Our boss has an offer for you.
Cloud: Rufus? He's dead!
Turks: Think again.

They go to meet Rufus

Cloud: So, a character with no combat training and no physical enhancement from the Jenova project whatsoever somehow survived being shot right in the face by Diamond Weapon with a giant beam of pure energy that also caused your entire office building to collapse right on top of you.
Rufus: And all I got away with was a broken arm.
Cloud: Great, we're fifteen minutes into this movie and the plot is total bullshit already.
Rufus: And it's only going to get worse, because when Square writes themselves into one corner they have some obsessive compulsion to write themselves into the other three as well! I need your help to stop the Throwaways.
Cloud: Screw you, man.

Elsewhere, the Throwaways advance on Aerith's church, where Tifa and Marlene are. I have no idea why, since we just established that they were living outside of Midgar only minutes ago.

Loz: We are looking for the head of Jenova, give it to us!
Tifa: Why the hell would we have something like that? We spent the entirety of Final Fantasy VII trying to KILL Jenova, remember?
Loz: You haven't caught on yet? We just wander around and start fights to try and push the movie forward in spite of an absence of any real character or motivation.
Tifa: Ah. Just like Seifer, Seymour and the Turkeys.

Another fight ensues, Tifa loses. Loz kidnaps Marlene (WHY? WHAT DOES SHE HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!) and vanishes again.

Cloud sets off to try and rescue Marlene, but finds himself overwhelemed by the Throwaways (again) and has to get rescued by Vincent - ANOTHER lame character nobody cared about! Except for the goth crowd. Maybe.

Vincent: They're trying to revive Sephiroth, Cloud.
Cloud: Really, Square? You'd stoop that low just to push this crappy film? Bringing back the dead is the absolute worst form of lazy writing, especially when we've already firmly established that that's impossible.
Vincent: Well, my contractually obligated three minutes are up, I'm getting out of here.

The throwaways summon a bunch of monsters to attack Midgar, which is yet another lazy vehicle to pad the movie out with eye-candy fight scenes and give the rest of the cast their requisite three minutes of screen time. Yes, that's right; the heavily touted "return to the universe of Final Fantasy VII" doesn't even give 95% of the cast more than a pittance when it comes to involvement in the plot.

Cait Sith: I got the worst of it; they didn't even give me my fucking Moogle, so I can't even do anything! I just ride on Red's back the whole movie!

The fights continue.

Rufus: Oh hey, guys, that "Head of Jenova" Macguffin you've spent the whole film looking for? I got it!

He drops it off the side of the building, which is the stupidest idea since we've already seen that every character in this movie is a superpowered anime hero and that gravity, terminal velocity and physical injury basically mean nothing to them. Kadaj scoops it up and runs away.

Cloud: Ugh, you FUCKING IDIOT. Why did you not just DESTROY that thing? Did you completely forget that Jenova nearly brought the entire planet to ruin TWICE already?
Rufus: The same reason that you, despite knowing that I was alive and effectively powerless to stop you, didn't kill me - so we can get roped into even more shitty sequels in the future!
Cloud: God damn it.

Another running battle ensues, which Cloud actually wins this time despite losing badly to them just minutes ago. In desperation Kadaj absorbs Jenova's head, which inexplicably turns him into Sephrioth. Oooooh!

Sephiroth: It was I who created the Geostigma disease from Jenova's cells, and once the people infected with it die and return to the lifestream I will have control over the planet and use it as my vehicle to conquer the universe!
Cloud: Okay. First of all, you're supposed to be DEAD AND GONE, as I've already killed you twice. Second, that plan makes no sense; planets don't move under their own power, they're being moved around by the gravitational pull of the sun. And finally... why are you so fucking ugly in this movie? You look like a coked-out raver in clown makeup, man.

None of these get answered to any satisfactory degree (of course), so they just resort to another lazy fight scene, which Cloud easily wins by using his seven-piece sword's Limit Break on him. No, I'm not kidding.

Sephiroth: Gasp! Who would have thought that the same thing that killed me last time would work again?!
Cloud: Even the main villain, which the entire movie was hyped around the return of and my epic final battle with, didn't manage to get more than five minutes of screen time. Nice going, Square.

Aerith and Zack's Jedi Ghosts: Cloud, you will go to the Dagobah system.
Cloud: Wha...?
Aerith and Zack's Jedi Ghosts: Just kidding. We're just here to heal your injuries, kill the other two Throwaways, and wipe out the whole Geostigma problem in one gigantic Deus ex Machina.
Cloud: I'd get into a rant about how sloppy this conclusion is, but I'm just glad that we're quitting while we're behind.
Tifa: Until the next sequel, of course.
Cloud: Of course.

Spoony: This movie blows. The character and weapon designs are beyond gaudy, most of the cast is barely acknowledged, the voice acting is awful, the story is almost nonexistant and there are more plot holes and continuity issues than a bad fanfic. The only thing that makes it tolerable for a single watch is the action scenes, which are so fast-paced and over the top that they become completely awesome. But that said, fight scenes should serve the purpose of enhancing the story, not desperately trying to distract you from it.

So yeah, I think I'd rather sit through a double feature of Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter the Movie than watch this again; sure, those movies were also loud, stupid and had almost nothing to do with the stories they were based on, but at least Nintendo and Capcom had the good sense to distance them from their respective franchises.