Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (Special Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A visual tour-de-force but otherwise a little lackluster...
Review: The most common complaint of many of the younger reviewers/critics I have heard is that "Final Fantasy" does not follow the video games of the same name. What these people fail to realize is that movie studios want to make money. And to do that they try to reach as wide an audience as possible. In this case that means the great swath of the population that has not played the games. I have never played the games so I cannot comment one way on the other on them - but I can say I enjoyed the movie even without ever having seen the games or knowing a thing about them. Also remember that from the studio's point of view, people who had never played the games may now be interested. The point of reviewing the movie should be to do that: review the movie. Unless a movie makes a claim to being tied in with existing franchises (much like "X-Files: Fight the Future" did with the X-Files TV series), then a good reviewer should not rely on those franchises when reviewing the movie.

Visually, "Final Fantasy" was stunning. The story, however, was a little weak. It just barely hung together for me with all the talk of spirits and life forces and Gaia. However, it was made in the Asian mindset so this is to be expected to some degree and I am sure the story held together for people who enjoy that type of thing. The storyline was sort of a mix of Eastern spiritualism and Western empiricism, thus giving the plot a somewhat interesting juxtaposition of theme. It also juxtaposed the military-industrial complex with the "scientists" (who might be described more as mystics or hermeticists). The dialogue was pretty bland (I lost count of how many times Alec Baldwin's character said "What the hell was that?!?" or how many times Ming-Na's character might little grunting or sighing sounds) and the characters were pretty stereotypical as were their actions. But, again, you cannot beat some of the visuals which were just fantastic.

I think, in the end, "Final Fantasy" will be better remembered as a movie that pushed a certain boundary (beyond the "Toy Story", "Shrek" type graphic animation) and possibly even ushered in a new wave of entertainment with virtual actors and actresses. The movie is absolutely fantastic eye-candy and will certainly appeal to those who like a lot of the Asian concepts interspersed throughout. For Westerners (particularly those who have never played the game) this movie might come across as a little "flighty" or esoteric at times, particularly near the end. I gave it four stars for sheer graphical brilliance but I had to keep that last star because of some of the story elements that I could just not get into.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Video Game Movie?!?
Review: Movies based on video games haven't traditionally been very good to say the least. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within has broken this rule. First I'll be honest. The Final Fantasy series of games usually have great stories for video games, but when compared to other mediums such as film and the novel, they generally don't hold up. The same is true here. The premise is interesting and amazingly close to the source material; invisible monsters are here and all. However, like many recent action/adventure films, the plot is really just a vehicle for the absolutely jaw dropping visuals.

As you probably already know, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is entirely computer generated. Think Toy Story or Shrek, only with realistic humans and backdrops. The results are astounding. Looking at the faces with detailed whiskers or arms with veins and muscles is amazing. You have to see this to believe it. But the true strength with Computer Generated images is that anything you imagine can come true. Therefore the decidedly unrealistic, fantastic scenes of alien planets, the "phantoms" and the barrier cities are things only to be seen with the magic of CGI.

Please go see this movie knowing that you will see something very, very different. But this doesn't make it any less a treat.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but it should have been more of a Fantasy.
Review: I was surprised, after all of the reviews I read I had the feeling it was going to be really dumb. But it was a pretty good movie as far as the story goes, the only thing I didn't like was the whole guya thing, but i guss without that the movie wouldn't make sense. The graphics were amazing!!!I have only played FF8 and so far, it is my favorite game and I think that they should have made a movie out of that game, the theme of that game was broad enought for a lot of people to like it. I was a bit disapointed that the story wasn't really fantasy, it was sci-fi. But that is okay. I also thought they could have made it a bit longer and gone a little more in depth. but it was good and everybody should see it!

Rating:
Summary: It never fails to stun me how fast some people judge...
Review: Okay, I feel I need to voice my opinion [...] of ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’. See, even if this film had been live action, I somehow knew that it would be bombarded with negative feedback and tales that it is a [take on] everything under the sun. First, let me make my opinion clear on the idea of originality – there really isn’t any left. We’ve done everything to death, and when something original does come round, it is considered rather taboo and shocking.

The ideas in this film were actually very keen, and I think that people try to underplay what Hironobu Sakaguchi, was trying to do. It should be known that the script for ‘The Spirits Within’ was written long before ‘The Phantom Menace’ ever came out. If Sakaguchi wanted to call the film such, he could have snagged the title long before Lucas did.

I don’t think the people who have reviewed the film have ever even played one of the games. The ‘Final Fantasy’ games aren’t pure adrenaline action. The only time you really see that are in FMVs and some of the battle camera angles. RPG games are quite different than games like, say, Resident Evil. They unfold differently, so when I finally got in to see the film, I was extremely pleased. I didn’t dwell on the fact that the characters didn’t always seem real, or that Aki’s hair didn’t seem to ‘fall’ around her face properly. Also, it seems sometimes that people just want to complain – they complain if a film lacks plot, and then complain if it has one.

The movie has been publicized on involving an alien invasion of Earth. Anyone who has seen the film will know what the true story is, and what’s really going on. I thought it was a decent plot twist, and I enjoyed the slightly more serious undertones that this movie sported. It made for a great emotional ride.

One of my biggest problems are that people can’t seem to keep up with the story. It marries two opposite premises – science and spirituality. This is a popular coupling in Japan, and is the reason that, when Final Fantasy first came out on the NES, the Japanese market was afraid that American gamers might be lost or not fully understand the purpose of the game.

I can safely say that this has happened with the movie – a majority of the people reviewing this film simply can’t keep up, and can’t deal with the premise of Gaia and spirituality.

Now, beyond that, my only complaint is that a lot of the back story of each character was lost in the final draft of the script. Most of it is restored in the novel and on [the website], but movie-goers aren’t patient enough, or simply don’t have the ability, to get online and find the information, or they just don’t want to read the book. Characters like Hein actually had a bit of depth, but it was chopped up by a writer that has only ever done one other script (for Apollo 13.)

The script was a bit more outrageous, until Sakaguchi handed it over to the man behind Apollo 13 for touchups. I don’t think this man thought the American public could handle the Fantasy nature of the script, so he did a bit of a overhaul. Sakaguchi took his advice in faith, and I think it hurt the film more than it helped it.

Overall, though, it seems that the film is doing good with the general audience. Many of the polls I’ve seen are positive, and that makes me happy. Some people are just looking for a bit of fun, while others are just out to beat the heat. I think most of the people who were disappointed here were expecting far too much.

On one last note – this is Square Picture’s first film, as well as Hironobu Sakaguchi’s directorial debut (film-wise) and I happen to think they did a damn fine job. The film came together very well, and it was a learning experience. As this kind of animation gets cheaper, I’m hoping to see more from Sakaguchi and Square. The idea of a sequel is already underway, which means Sakaguchi isn’t going to let the possible failure of this film (and when I say failure, I say it with a grain of salt) stop him. He’s going to press on, and I look up to him for that.

I enjoyed the film, and I look forward to another Square Picture production.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I had never played a Final Fantasy game and all I really knew about them was that each one is a different story. I was draged to see this movie. When it started, I was thinking how great the animation was. But I soon forgot the characters weren't real and got caught in the storyline. It is so good. I'm definatelyu going again! I don't want to give away the story line so all I'm going to tell you is that it takes place in the future and the Earth is inhabited with aliens. Now the humans have to get rid of these aliens before earth is destroyed! Kids over 7 years old can go see this movie, but they might not understand it!

Rating:
Summary: Closer to the game than what most would think...
Review: People who saw the movie because of the game's sake, disliked it how it's nothing like the game. People who saw the movie for the CG disliked it b/c of action scenes. People who saw it for the movie never liked to cheesy lines. Well... in fact, the movie is like FF7's story in a FF8 like world. I don't want to spoil anything, but if you ever played FF7 before, you can see the strong resemblance btw the two. Now for the action, the movie DID have good action, it just lacked in sound quality. No fast-paced electronical back ground music, nor fancy tricks other movies use to amplify the action scenes. And finally the cheesy lines... well, if you ever play any of the FF game, you would know by now that FF is actually full of cheesy lines, so the movie having few of them is actually good. Overall, I think this movie was great. If they somehow make the sound better on the DVD, there would be no doubt that I'm going to buy myself a copy.

Rating:
Summary: Visually stunning, but script needs work.
Review: UNBELIEVABLE COMPUTER ANIMATION!!! It looks fabulous! Very impressive! Too bad as much care wasn't taken with the script. Video game fans probably already know enough backstory and context to enjoy the film despite the holes in the plot. But as one of the uninitiated, I found some of the plot elements (namely, finding the "spirits") to be a bit too conveniently resolved. There is very little sense of mystery to it. Urgency and action, yes. Mystery, no. But that can be forgiven. THE COMPUTER ANIMATION IS UNBELIEVABLE! Or have I already said that? Now for the voice casting: That rates about a 6 out of 10. Ming-Na as Dr. Aki Ross was great, as were Donald Sutherland, Ving Rhames, and James Woods. But Peri Gilpin (from TV's "Frasier"), Steve Buscemi, and (yes) Alec Baldwin have voices that just don't quite work here. The character Baldwin voices might have benefitted from a richer baritone or bass voice - like Kevin Sorbo, for example. And Buscemi's and Gilpin's voices were more distracting than beneficial. Am I just picky? Maybe. Last point -- the ONLY flaw in the character animation was the lip movements during speech. It just didn't work as well as it could have. Their lips don't close at certain points where they should, such as during consonants like "p" and "b". Not that I could have done a better job with the animation. All other aspects of the artistry are UNBELIEVABLE! There's that word again. Be sure you stay for the closing credits to hear the song by the lovely voice of Lara Fabian!!!

Rating:
Summary: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within...
Review: Just that name was enough to bring chills to my spine a few years ago when I first got wind this movie was coming out. For the next 2 years, I pined away, watching all the trailers, reading any story snippits I could find. During that time, I got some really high expectations for this movie. Then I saw it.

And it still blew me away.

First of all, the story line was much more in-depth than many give it credit for. It does truly live up to a Final Fantasy name, carrying a deep story line with traces of love, deception, and haterid. It does feel a bit rushed, but really, how much Final Fantasy can you fit into 80 minutes? In this case, just enough. Don't get me wrong, I was weaned into the video gaming world on Final Fantasy II, and have played every Final Fantasy since. I am used to the long, complicated stories, and I still loved this movie.

The animation, well, what can I say about the animation. Truely stunning, incredibly realistic, and virtually seamless. Virtually, because there are some problems with lip-sync and hand motions. The opening and ending sequence truly show what this new technology is capable of, and the rest of the movie is not far behind.

While this movie does carry a PG-13 rating, there is very little blood, no swearing, and no nudity. A rare occurance in this 'modern' world. But I still wouldn't take a young child to this movie, simply because they would not be able to grasp the complexities of this movie, not to mention the reasons behind the deaths.

Go into this expecting to be wowed, and you will not be disappointed. Just do not go into this expecting a full 60 hour plot (the usual Final Fantasy fare), as you will miss the beauty that is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Rating:
Summary: Forget the naysayers...
Review: I just saw this movie and thought it was great! The films action scenes are very well paced and imaginitive. The film had a great soundtrack and is very dramatic at times. Sure the story had cliches, but it never got boring for a minute. The characters mouths don't move right from time to time, but it doesnt really take anything away from the film. Simply put, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a solid science fiction film. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Totally AMAZING!!!
Review: I just saw it an hour ago and i'm seeing it again tomorrow! It is sooooo amazing! perfect sound, awesome story line, great development... can we just say if this doesn't win oscars, i don't know what should!