Rating: 
Summary: ALIENS, anyone?!
Review: Okay, before I begin, I liked this movie - a lot. However, while being a GREAT sci-fi movie, it was just lacking that Final Fantasy feel that the games tend to give off. It had very improper atmosphere. Anyway, let's get into this:Alright, the director of the games has been watching Aliens WAAAAY too much. The movie is often called Alien 5 by some of my friends. We're all total freaks of the Alien series, no we all naturally loved this movie. However, we're also huge Final Fantasy fans, and this movie was just way too Aliens for us to call Final Fantasy. Firstly, let's examine the plot itself, dealing with aliens from another unknown world that come and kill everyone off. That in itself sounds too familiar to the invasion colonly on LV-426. Character relations: the main character is, of course, a woman - with an alien infection inside her - kinda like Ripley and her Queen Alien infection. And that Grey character just popped Hicks into my mind right then. Then there's Neil, which basically Hudson with a dumber sense of humor and a high nasal voice. Oh and we CAN'T forget Ryan and Jane - a total ripoff of Sgt. Apone and Vasquez (Jane is THE biggest Vasquez ripoff I've ever seen.) Music relations - anyone who knows their Alien films also know that the composer for this movie is none other than Alien 3's Elliot Goldenthal. He even puts his famous orchestration sounds into the movie (remember the Chase Scene from Alien 3? Compare the music in that to Aki's Dream). Lemme see if I've missed anything... oh yeah! The nature of the creatures from both films is very similar. I even heard that the Phantoms were inspired by H.R. Giger, the Alien creature's creator. I might be wrong about this, but I've heard it flying around a few times. Also, the creatures have the same use of humans - the Phantoms infect a human upon touch with piece of a Phantom that eventually matures and overtakes the human body. The Xenomorph implants an embryo in the human body that matures and KILLS the human body. Striking similarity there.... Okay I'm through ranting about Aliens. Now I'll go quickly into what the movie was missing that would have made it more Final Fantasy and less Aliens. -Where the HELL are the Chocobos and Moogles!!?? They at LEAST could have put ONE of them in there! Seeing a Chocobo on someone's SHIRT doesn't COUNT, man! That's WAY too far off. They could have put ONE Chocobo in there.
(A few people have said that there's a Phantom in the later scenes modeled directly after a Chocobo, but I don't believe it, personally)
-Why does it take place on Earth? I think that was A HUGE mistake, because it severely limits their possibilities in terms of plot and creativity. All the FF's have taken place in their own little universe that has nothing to do with Earth.
-Why didn't Nobuo Umetsu compose the music? That would have added a lot to it.
-Almost all of the FF's have some kind of cameo appearence by a character, place, event, etc. Like the scene in FF Tactics with Aeris and Cloud, as an obvious example. The movie had none of that, to my dismay. I was hoping that in that meeting room, I'd see Cloud or Seifer, Terra, Tristam, or Ramza and Delita. I DID see Sakaguchi there, but he's VERY difficult to make out.
-Signature characters didn't make an appearence, like the frequent Biggs and Wedge duo, for example. They could very well have made them a part of the Deep Eyes Team!!
You know what I thought would have been cool is if they put Tristam and Reuben (From Mystic Quest) as Deep Eyes members. I really liked both of those characters. As a grand total, I give this movie 3 out of 5 for being an awesome Alien 5 movie, but a [bad] Final Fantasy movie
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: In some of the opening scenes, it is hard to tell that this was made by a computer. Then you get over it. The story, viewed by someone who hasn't played the game, may be a bunch of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but it had obvious video game elements. These video game elements were key to the movie. The games are usually based on someone harming mother earth. The importance of our world. The movie was beautiful and dark. Ming Na was excellent as Aki. The dream sequence really blew me away.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing new
Review: Well, OK. The animation is the saving grace of this film. Not much else is present, though. Bad character development, predictable plot, and a story that follows the Buddhist doctrine to a T-these are all reasons I find this movie under-par. The over-all crappiness can be attributed to the fact that square had it's thumbs in too many pies at the time of development ("pies" like Final Fantasy IX-XI). Maybe that's why the movie came out second rate (FFIX, too!) In closing, it's worth seeing once for the CGI, but not a flick worthy of buying.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent animation, but little else
Review: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Moto Sakakibara, 2001) Every review of this movie I ever read says roughly the same thing: "the animation in this movie will astound you. If you're not impressed by animation, though, you might as well ignore it, because there's nothing backing it up." I hate to say it, but despite animation that is, truly, fantastic, and a cast that redefines "high-powered" in an animated film, those reviews are dead on, and you won't read anything new here. The setting is Earth in 2065. Thirty-four years previous, a large meteorite crashed into the Earth's surface (forget, for the moment, that the last time a chunk of rock this big crashed into the Earth's surface, the dinosaurs were wiped out), bringing with it an alien race called the Phantoms. The Phantoms are very invisible, very nasty, and extremely pissed off, and their main mission on Earth seems to be to kill humans as quickly and efficiently as possible. What's left of humanity is holed up in a large, ultra-secure dome in New York City. Most humans are simply concerned with killing Phantoms in the same way Phantoms kill humans, but two scientists, Aki (Ming-Na, recently of Mulan) and Sid (Donald Sutherland), are convinced that conventional weapons are not the way to go here; they're of the belief that a series of eight spirits, when combined correctly and beamed out over the earth, will act towards the Phantoms as matter acts to anti-matter, the two will cancel each other out, and humans will be free to recolonize their own
planet. The head of the faction who believes guns ARE the way to go is General Hyde (James Woods), who assigns a team of stormtroopers to guard Aki and Sid in their quest to find the eight spirits (the film opens with Aki going out into the undomed part of New York to get the sixth one). The subtext, of course, is that the guards are also monitors. The guards ain't no slouches either, voicewise. Keith David, Peri Gilpin, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Buscemi all lend their vocal talents to these parts. That's a lot of talent in that there paragraph, Vern. It's also more than enough meat, handled correctly, to come up with a pretty bang-up story with lots of mysticism AND lots of things blowing up. How cool is that? Not too cool at all, unfortunately. The plot's about as wooden as it could possibly be, and while the voice acting is exceptional in its understatement for an animated film (where one expects, and probably should expect, overacting; witness the successes of Monsters Inc. and Shrek the same year of Final Fantasy's release), it more often than not comes off as wooden and unemotional. Whether it's the voice acting, Squaresoft's continuing inability to animate faces correctly, or a combination of the above remains debatable. The inability to animate faces, though (they're just too smooth, pure and simple), is Square's only shortcoming where the animation is concerned. There were two or three points during the film where I really did think I was watching a live-action movie. The Spirits Within, if nothing else, will be remembered for pushing the envelope orders of magnitude farther than any film before it for realistic animation. While that animation itself is probably a good enough reason to give this thing a ninety-nine cent rental, more than anything it underscores the idea that, if the plot had been carried off with the same flair as the animation, The Spirits Within would have achieved "instant classic" status faster than you can say anime. And that's the biggest disappointment the film offers. **
Rating: 
Summary: Something unique!
Review: Well,to begin this review,I must say that this movie rivalizes Lord of the Rings as the best film of 2001,and is one of the top ten best movies of all time,I think.
It is about a young woman named Dr. Aki Ross,who gets advices in her dreams about what to do to save the Earth from beeing completley destroyed by aliens. She gets help from a few other characters,among them Neil (voiced by Alec Baldwin),Dr Sid (voiced by Donald Sutherland),and general Hein (voiced by James Woods). So this is yet another CG film with the voices of famous actors!
Yeah,some people might think there is boring watching CG generated characters but this ain`t Toy Story or something!
This is one of the most expensive films ever made,with it`s 120 dollar budget,and one which really deserved that budget. The computer animations are really remarkable - this is a perfect science-fiction film. It has a quite good story,fantastic backgrounds,interesting characters,and amazing space monsters,such as giant dragons and the space demons called "phantoms",which reminds me of the strategy game Star Craft`s well-known aliens zergs. This movie is really concentrated on detail - the animators worked for four years animating this one. Not a singel thing is done unambitiously!
And I really appreciate that. My favorite sequences are the battle scenes in the end of the film,featuring some of the most fantastic lighting effects & CG monsters ever seen,making Star Wars Episode I look like a playhouse!
It`s a real pity it failed at the box office - I had even hope for a sequel,but that's only in my dreams now. Many people might think this is silly because it is animated,but this ain`t a Disney film - this is as great as any live-action science-fiction film. Or may be it was because it was very unlike the game - the only thing familiar was the title!
Well,now I've reviewed the film,so I will spend a little time reviewing the extras on this collector`s edition DVD. It contains a lot of specials,different from many other DVD`s I`ve seen. Among my favorites are the alternate opening,matte art explorations,the documentary "Making of Final Fantasy",the character files and the blasts/boards - two of them featuring story boards and CG edited paintings,which are invalueable to people who works with computer graphics as well as people who likes to do sci-fi/fantasy drawings.
Over all,one of the top 5 movies of 2001 and definitly something for any science-fiction fans.
Rating:
Summary: Something unique!
Review: Well,to begin this review,I must say that this movie rivalizes Lord of the Rings as the best film of 2001,and is one of the top ten best sci-fi movies of all time,I think.
It is about a young woman named Dr. Aki Ross,who gets advices in her dreams about what to do to save the Earth from beeing completley destroyed by aliens. She gets help from a few other characters,among them Neil (voiced by Alec Baldwin),Dr Sid (voiced by Donald Sutherland),and general Hein (voiced by James Woods). So this is yet another CG film with the voices of famous actors!
Yeah,some people might think there is boring watching CG generated characters but this ain`t Toy Story or something!
This is one of the most expensive films ever made,with it`s 120 dollar budget,and one which really deserved that budget. The computer animations are really remarkable - this is a perfect science-fiction film. It has a quite good story,fantastic backgrounds,interesting characters,and amazing space monsters,such as giant dragons and the space demons called "phantoms",which reminds me of the strategy game Star Craft`s well-known aliens zergs. This movie is really concentrated on detail - the animators worked for four years animating this one. Not a singel thing is done unambitiously!
And I really appreciate that. My favorite sequences are the battle scenes in the end of the film,featuring some of the most fantastic lighting effects & CG monsters ever seen,making Star Wars Episode I look like a playhouse!
It`s a real pity it failed at the box office - I had even hope for a sequel,but thatÂ's only in my dreams now. Many people might think this is silly because it is animated,but this ain`t a Disney film - this is as great as any live-action science-fiction film. Or may be it was because it was very unlike the game - the only thing familiar was the title!
Well,now IÂ've reviewed the film,so I will spend a little time reviewing the extras on this collector`s edition DVD. It contains a lot of specials,different from many other DVD`s I`ve seen. Among my favorites are the alternate opening,matte art explorations,the documentary "Making of Final Fantasy",the character files and the blasts/boards - two of them featuring story boards and CG edited paintings,which are invalueable to people who works with computer graphics as well as people who likes to do sci-fi/fantasy drawings.
Over all,one of the top 5 movies of 2001 and definitly something for any science-fiction fans.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful (What else do you expect from Square?)
Review: I just wish this movie did well in theatres. It's beautiful, it's got a great story (Very similar to Final Fantasy VII in a way), and the voices are all just right. I hate bad voice actors, and they were right on target. Great textures, great backgrounds, etc. My only problem was a little bit of weirdness in Aki's hair. Not like that's a big deal. Strong characters you get attached to (I pity da foo' that doesn't see the Barret-like character from VII in this movie!). So....buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Great Visuals, But Not Much Plot.
Review: I had heard mixed reviews before watching the film on tape so I wasn't sure what to expect from FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN. A lof of friends of mine who had played the video games were really excited when this film was released in 2001. However, I've never played any of the games and therefore watched the film solely on its cinematic merit. Overall, the movie isn't that great. The story drags on in a plot mix of science fiction and eastern mystic paganism. Films of the later variety usually aren't that interesting (see WHAT DREAMS MAY COME). However, decent sci-fi flicks are enjoyable. Unfortunately, FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN isn't a decent sci-fi movie. The only good thing about the film is the visuals: FINAL FANTASY is a computer animated flick that contains the most realistic looking computer animation to date. The characters in the film are the first synthespians. The movie is worth watching for that aspect and that aspect only. Other than that, you're wasting your time.
Rating:
Summary: Final Fantasy is the next "Lawrence of Arabia"
Review: Final Fantasy blew me away. I was completely and utterly amazed by this movie, nay, this breathtaking piece of art. I found myself wanting to find the makers of the movie and give them all big hugs and maybe kisses because it was so great. Not since Lawrence of Arabia has a movie this GREAT come out in theatres. Final Fantasy is great for three reasons:
1. It came from the greatest video game ever.
2. The makers of it lost so much money on it that they can no longer afford to be in the movie-making business.
3. Because of all the great characterization.
All of you should see this movie because it will blow you away. Forget Citizen Kane, Casablanca, or even Dr. Strangelove. MAN. Final Fantasy will be studied one day, mark my words, as an example of what mankind can truly do when it sets its mind to it!
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: First of all, the movie itself is AMAZING!!. I've heard some people say it "sucked", but I think anyone in that frame of mind was probably simply frustrated that they could not follow the story. A little hard to follow, yes, but that's what makes it worth to watch a second, third and fourth time. Even if you can't follow the story, this movie is visually satisfying no matter who you are or what you like. The special features are great. From character profiles that make you believe even more in the main characters when you watch it the next time, to "outakes" where the animators had fun and did a few jokes along the way. I especially liked the section called "Aki's Dream" which shows you her entire dream without interuption. To see it all together like that was wonderfull. What makes the movie's visual effects that much more amazing is when you see how many different groups are involved in a single shot. The work and attention to detail is mind blowing. This DVD set is worth having just for those special documentation of the making of the movie. Worth every penny you will pay for this Special Edition set.
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