Rating: 
Summary: good animation, BAD characterization
Review: It's a shame that for a movie this well animated, the characters couldn't have been a little less...well, laughable.The plot was all right at the beginning, but at the end, it seemed the animators needed a quick flashy way to end off the film. Rather disappointing. And the characters! Oh the characters!!! Aki was annoying, her boyfriend a little too noble to be real...the only good character was the doctor. Some of the scenes were just plain CHEESY! The one love scene with Aki and her boyfriend made me laugh out loud in the theatre. Why oh why do they have to be so melodramatic? Also, I had this constant nagging consciousness that something was wrong with all of the characters' teeth. The makers of this film just didn't seem to understand that...characters and story are important too! Yes, the animation was spectacular, but the characters just fell flat. You didn't care about them at all. The soundtrack also left something to be desired. Instead of the moving, rather nostalgic music I was used to in the Final Fantasy games, the music in this movie was severely lacking in emotion and momentum. See this movie if you want to be wowed with the animation, which is well done. But if you're looking for a real animated MOVIE, rent Shrek.
Rating: 
Summary: the box set of the century
Review: YEs, i do see some flaws in the animation, the animation is still stellar, and the sound is spectacular. I do not have even an HDTV and its awesome to watch with surround sound. I am not the biggest animation film fan, but this one made more of a fan out of me. Although the ending of the movie is a little weak. for the most part the movie is great, especially if you are a sci-fi fan. For that, i give it 5 stars for the high quality animation and for pure integrity...
Rating: 
Summary: lifeless
Review: i know this is a computer animated movie, but that doesnt mean the characters have to be as lifeless as its Creator, the computer. i give it three stars for the effort involved in creating such graphics. that must have taken some time!
Rating:
Summary: The world is saved by underwear models!
Review: Why did all the characters in this CGI film look like they stepped out of Calvin Klein underwear ad? Like so many have stated this is a visually stunning, but rather confusing mess of a film. After it was over I felt like Krusty the Clown- "What the hell was that?!?!"
Rating:
Summary: You know, for just a minute . . .
Review: . . . I thought something was wrong with the signal, because I just happened on this thing without reading about it and thought the people were real! The movie? Oh well, I can take or leave this sort of thing, it was OK I guess. What struck me about this is how close we're getting to reality in animations. Ten more years and we won't need actors and actresses anymore, they'll just sell their images and voices! Or their heirs will, I suppose. Would you bother to pay to acquire the real 60 year-old Robert Redford when you can rent his age 30 images? The further adventures of Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford at 35? Co-starring Mary Pickford? Why not? Anyway, definitely worth a look-see just to check on the current state of the art in human animation.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Movie!
Review: Just saw this a couple of days ago. I was very impressed. I don't quite understand everyone's distaste over the plot and script. The plot has a more mystical tone than most scifi films and I thought the ideal behind it was extremely original and the look of the film is (of course) breath taking. Although a few action scenes reminded me of Aliens, I was really suprised at how this CG film didn't take a turn for the worst like most films in the Scifi genre do. Mind you I've never played the games nor have I seen them. So I say: IF YOU LIKE SCIENCE FICTION SEE IT WITH AN OPEN MIND!
Rating:
Summary: "Final Fantasy" thoughts - Spoiler Free
Review: Think you know what the movie is about, just from the trailer? Dead wrong. 90% of the stuff in the trailer is from the first thirty minutes of the movie. And this film is almost 2 hours long. Which means that you've got a ton of movie to watch. The storyline is good, but there were points that I was hoping for more back-story. I did like the revelation about the phantoms and why they're here, though it didn't provide enough information for me to understand their M.O. The film clips along at a good pace, though, and you truly get to feeling for the human characters along the way. In fact, the woman next to me started snuffling when one of the "Deep Eyes" team is killed in action against the phantoms. The digital effects of the phantoms are stunning, and truly creepy. There's a huge myriad of phantom forms... everything from flying "dragons" to human-sized, to "meta" forms: huge, lumbering, sinister-looking, and utterly deadly. One mere brush against a phantom is enough to infect a human and kill him. If that isn't scary... the phantoms are capable of ripping your very spirit from your body... leaving your physical shell to drop like so much dead weight. Worse still, this process is extremely disturbing, and frighteningly quick (and could possibly spook young children) The CGI rendering throughout the film is eye-candy of the highest order. There are a few moments where you can tell that one or two characters were rendered at the beginning of the project; they're a bit stiff, and a little too obviously CGI. However, the animation for Dr. Ross (voiced by Ming-Na) and Capt. Gray (Alec Baldwin) are incredible. The animation on Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) is so life-like I had to remind myself at a couple of junctions that he's CGI; he had some very human mannerisms. The voice-acting is top-notch, something you'd expect from a cast of this caliber. And the interplay between Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin, and Steve Buscemi sounded so natural, it's difficult to believe that they weren't recorded all together in the same room. Of all the voice-actors, I'd have to give the least amount of credit to James Wood, for his turn as General Hein, the vengeance-obsessed military strategist. He was too wooden, IMO. Donald Sutherland's performance was stellar, and his subtle intonations fit the character perfectly. The ending.... Well, it's certainly a Final Fantasy ending; a balance of the melancholic and optimistic. I didn't quite see the ending coming, but I felt that it was right none-the-less. The story is good; it's not superb. The characters are likeable (and at times,... funny), but there's a few problems with visually disparate rendering. The real treat here is the sheer scope of this project, and the sheer immensity of the visions you are part of. All in all, I'm going back to see it. I'll happily give them my money to see this amount of eye-candy again. It's amazing to see the technology pushed so far. I can't wait to see what they do for an encore. PS - Do not get up from your seat, until the credits start to roll. There's a hauntingly beautiful track that plays over the last few minutes of the film, and the beginning of the credits. It's beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Here's what I think.
Review: I loved this movie.It's one of the best animated movies squaresoft has produced or made.Anyways,(Final Fantasy:Spirits
Within)did a fantastic job:)The movie is saturated with and 3D
envioment.(Not to mention the sound effect sounded so real around the surround sound.) Anyways,all the characters were so real that I thought they was
real people in a Fantasy movie with 3D envioment around them.
Also the animation was AWSOME. Did I mention the graphics.The alien spirits were SWEET:)and they look like they were real microscopic cells or something.
An everyone out there that hasn'tseen this GRRRRRRRREAT! Real life animated movie the GO SEE IT.
It's hard to understand but it's easy to see.So go see it,then you'll see what I'm talking about.
Rating:
Summary: What were they thinking
Review: The only reason I give this movie 2 stars is because it was pretty. Once the eye-candy, "wow that looks great, I'm shocked," wears off you have to look at the movie for what it is: A super trite and boring plot that makes you want to use the DVD as a frisbe. See it for the eye-candy, buy it because you always wanted to see how far a DVD could travel.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: What's most surprising about this computer-generated sci-fi spectacular is that it doesn't rely on technical wizardry alone. Along with its jaw-dropping visuals and superb sound design, "Final Fantasy" manages to tell an original and appealing story which probably wouldn't stand up if made as a live-action film. But animation can go where live action fears to tread, and while its mysticism won't appeal to everyone, fans of Manga will probably find the fusion of science and Eastern spirituality hits the mark. The plot unravels only slightly at the climax, requiring a strange sacrifice which doesn't seem necessary and doesn't make sense in the context of what's come before it. So ultimately, it's the good and bad aspects of the script which are most telling here: technically, CGI may or may not be the future of cinema, but "Final Fantasy" demonstrates that good storytelling is and always will be the heart of good cinema, no matter how it's produced. (It also proves that Alec Baldwin is much more convincing when you can't see him.) This double-disc DVD is packed with extra features that fans will enjoy - though it takes a while to find much of what's promised on the packaging. A lot of it is accessible only from within the "Making Of..." featurette, which can get a little frustrating.
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