Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful but complex
Review: This is one amazing movie, different from anything you have ever seen. It is extremely ambitious. It is the first computer generated movie to try not only to be in 3D but to actually represent reality. A few characters, especially Dr. Sid, can fool you into thinking they are human, an incredible achievement. It is a science fiction story wrapped around a spiritual core, a very difficult proposition. It has adventure, aliens, alien war, romance, valor, tragedy, violence and pacifism. This is a conceptually, artistically and technically groundbreaking work.Does it work? Not quite. The graphics may be much more advanced than anything seen to date, including the contemporary Shrek, but they are flawed. Aki Ross, the main character, has a beautiful and soulful face, but her mouth seems chiseled on her chin, her teeth seem to be planted too far out and look like a fish's, her eyes are not wet but rather seem built of a hard plastic, her hair (each of the 60,000 threads individually animated) looks like a synthetic piece. Her body is too long, and her, uhm, bottom seems all wrong. Still she has an intriguing, star-like presence. Other characters, unfortunately are very cartoonish. All suffer from stiff bodies, their limbs attached to rigid torsos, as you see on plastic toys. By the way, the movie is not really computer generated. Rather the computer is used as a very powerful, knowledge based, colored pencil, under the control of human artists. The resulting visual experience reminds one of a very detailed drawing. Live actors were used to help the animators use the computer to render the movie's characters. No wonder, the whole thing cost 100 million dollars to make. The storyline is built around a complex spiritual core, which is revealed little by little in the movie. (If you haven't yet seen the movie you may want to jump to the next paragraph.) It proposes that each life bearing planet holds a spirit in the ground out of which each life form is born from and to which it returns after death. These planetary spirits are formed from some kind of wave, and, significantly, they are incompatible and deadly to each other. A fragment of an alien planet destroyed by nuclear war, has fallen on earth and has disgorged many deceased individual spirits of that planet, which move around like phantoms and lay waste to much of our life sphere. Well, this is a rather complicated background for most of the movie going public, not to say slightly derogatory of the Christian world view. Star War's "the force be with you" was a much simpler proposition. The joy in Final Fantasy is in taking in the beauty of the realistic but completely human-made world it depicts. Less spirituality and more laughs and sexual tension would certainly have made it more successful. This movie takes itself too seriously for its own good. Shrek's creators were smarter in this sense. I understand that Final Fantasy has been a financial flop. This is a great pity. Personally I would love to see Aki Ross again in a few years time, at 10 times better rendering technology. If a movie deserves a sequence, this is one. The movie's creators must realize that they own much more than the first photo realistic picture in human history, they also own the first human-made movie star. Let's hope they will be able to build on top of this amazing achievement.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like a lack of plot...
Review: What a disapointment. I've experienced a few of the newer Final Fantasy games. Their story line didn't seem to be as lacking. The movie has a lot of big names doing the voices and the graphics are incredible, but that doesn't make up for a predictable ending and a horrible attempt at dramatic scenes. If you want to see a great flop, here it is.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty pictures but not worth my time.
Review: How disapointed I was with this film. It was suposed to be revolutionary and awe inspiring. Instead it fell flat and stale. Like a soda that has gone off and left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.
This is a very beautiful movie. The art, the scenes, the pictures, everything flows so wonderfully. But you can not have a movie on pictures alone. You need plot, character developement, and a good story. This movie fails on all three acounts. The characters are wooden and the females in the film are just thier as window dressing so that young teenage boys will phantasies about them. The plot is booring and clitche. Earth will be destroyed etc. . . And the story is extremely preachy and offensive. The promote the Gia earth theory to the extreme and are constantly craming down your throat a mix of easter / western mystsism that just makes you want to scream.
The movie could have been great . . . But you need a writer, producer, and director to make a movie. Not a code writer and a computer junkie.
Rating: 
Summary: Riveting sci-fi action
Review: Definitely one to add to the collection. I've only heard of the FF games. I haven't played any of them, but as to the film, it's makes for riveting sci-fi action with varied and complex characters, which are far more interesting than the usual stereotypical Hollywood characters that they usually put in animated features. Aki's dream is spectacular ! I just found the finale could have been a little less predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: A colossul Failure.
Review: The so-called era of CGI films has gotten off to a rocky start and this film, based on a video game series, and featureing total CGI characters in them both bombed with the critics and was a box office dud. Too over complex story of a woman and a man trying to save the earth from energy based creatures that kill humans by sucking their life force out of them. Similar to Tomb Raider but lacking serious drama, this movie took four years to make and pretty much bankrupted the animation company that made it. Thus the fear that CGI characters might one day replace human actors on film appears to have been unfounded and now much less likely to happen anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: Very underrated
Review: When I heard when Final Fantasy was released, I wanted to go see it; the animation looked awesome. However, hearing how bad it did at the box office and the scathing critical reviews made me reluctant to spend a lot of money on it, so I decided to wait until I could rent it. Well, after seeing it I can say that it is worth buying. First off, the animation IS awesome; there's none better. I never quite believed that I wasn't seeing a CGI character, but there were several occasions (mostly involving Dr. Sid) that I came very close. I also feel that, with respect to the story, the animation works because it's somewhere between that level of realism and fantasy; realistic enough to make you feel, but fantastic enough to give a surreality. Now, for the story. I was impressed, and very glad that the creators decided to stray from the games because if they had tried to cram a story that takes 40 hours to complete into a two hour movie, it would have been a train wreck. The mix of sci-fi and spirituality was a nice touch, and shows the film's origins in the East. And yes, a lot of the elements of the plot were clichéd, but so what? I thought that the way everything was put together worked nicely, so I don't find a problem with that. The story is a little slow going, but not overly so; there are enough action sequences to entertain the audience, if the CGI becomes boring (which won't happen), and it is easily followed it the viewer wishes to think a little. Personally, I found it refreshing to have a story that was more sympathetic with the aliens being lost souls; it may not be entirely original, but much preferred over mindless shooting over a two-hour period. The only part of the story that I found to be disappointing was the ending, which left a few things unexplained and unclear, but this may actually fit with the personality of the film by letting the viewer decide for themselves what has occurred. Overall, it is a very good movie with a few small flaws. The imagery is incredible and the story is well done. If you're looking for a movie that actually has a plot and you like to think, then give Final Fantasy a try.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: Nothing like the games, but that doesn't detract from the movie at all. Excellent graphics, and I love the bloopers on the bonus disc ;)
Rating:
Summary: great movie.. for people with NO STANDARDS!
Review: great movie.. absoloutly SUPERB MOVIE!
oh wait.. i meant to say "graphics" not "movie". he movie was absolute TRASH.. no plot whatsoever, poor "acting", and i think some of the lip synching was off... but, anyways, back to the point: this movie was great, if you are deaf and can't read subtitles. if the rating was only based on the visuals and complexity of the graphics, this movie would get 5+ out of 5, but since it also has to take "acting," and plot into account, this movie [is terrible]. [why do you think the company who created the film filed for bankrupcy recently?] the most amazing part of the movie was to be able to create very realistic human hair and human figures, and beautiful other visuals.. everything else falls apart and ruins the film. i you are a fan of the games, do NOT watch this movie, unless you want a reason to disown the games as an act of disgust for the name "Final Fantasy."...
Rating:
Summary: boring, boring, boring
Review: These guys spent a vast amount of time creating truly innovative computer graphics, but the storyline of this movie is dull, cliched, and a mishmash of elements from much better movies. They spent millions on computer imagery and 25 cents on the screenplay. Although the movie is supposed to be science fiction/adventure, the "action" scenes (in which humans battle alien ghosts) are some of the most boring action scenes I've ever seen. Hard to say how they got so dull--but the timing is way off, the editing is very bad, so the "action" fizzles. The story is mostly similar to "Princess Mononoke", a far superior bit of animation, but "Final Fantasy" reheats Mononoke's mysticism, spirits and eco-consciousness--unfortunately, in "Fantasy" there's no dramatic tension or likeable characters, so who cares. A lot of the action scenes are stolen from "Aliens"--the team of well-equipped military types fighting aliens with great big guns is a completely theft from "Aliens"--but here they're boring, boring, boring. When major characters die, I felt nothing. As for the animation, the characters look very real when they're standing still. But when Aki moves, she looks so stiff, like a robot--even in "Toy Story" characters moved more naturally. Apparently 42 programmers spent a year animating the thousands of hairs on Aki's head, and she's got a great hairdo. Her face is cute. But the facial expressions on all the characters are laughably bad, like extremely stiff, amateurish acting. Don't buy this--get "Princess Mononoke" instead, and wait until the day when photo-realistic computer animation is coupled with likeable human characters and a compelling story.
Rating:
Summary: breath ( lifeforce :-) taking
Review: First I'll have to say, I really like Sci-Fi Action and Animation so a movie combining those two has to be really lousy before I won't like it :-)
But, I LIKED THE WHOLE MOVIE.
The Graphics, the story, the voices, the visual effects, the love story (don't panic it isn't pearl harbor), the design of the world, the spirits, the action, the plot, ... , just everything. Except General Hein, I didn't like him, but hey, that's the bad guy :-) No really, what I mean is that even real human emotion are expressed very well.
Final Fantasy definately keeps your attention. If you liked Titan-A.E. You'll certainly like this one.
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