Review
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
- Director
- Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Moto Sakakibara
- Year
- 2001
- Rating
- Reviewed by
- Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho
- Review date
- Saturday, September 01, 2001
But will the members of the council, inclined to believe only what their eyes can reach, believe Dr. Ross’s theories without judging her like it’s happened to many scientists throughout the history of mankind? If not, she’s still got the support of her former lover, Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his team from the Army.
While this film raises important issues about the human nature and stubbornness, it also features an interesting storyline in a futuristic landscape, all computer-animated in the most impressive way.
So what’s so bad about this film? Well, I’ll put it this way: the three prior paragraphs are far more interesting than the whole movie. I’m nothing of a storyteller, but I must say I’ve managed to tell the film’s story in a better way than these guys actually did. It’s amazing how the premise is good, the animation is good, every element has potential, but nothing comes out of it. I really don’t understand why this happened. As a fan of the Final Fantasy videogames, I must say I’m really disappointed. Square always managed to tell a terrific story in their games, wrapped by outstanding visuals. I never really trusted this film in the way that the viewer can’t change the events like the videogame player can, but that didn’t mean the story couldn’t be good. The games always had amazing and very well-developed characters, a larger-than-life story, amazing visuals and an incredible music score. Well, apart from the visuals, this movie has nothing. As a matter of fact, it sucks.
I don’t really know what’s the matter with me when it comes to animated characters that so closely resemble human beings. I think technology hasn’t gone as far as to make an animation look so real. In Toy Story, all the toys looked great and real but the humans simply did not. Humans in Toy Story 2 looked good but they were not intended to resemble human beings so closely that it would fool some people so it was ok. Shrek (2001) did have that flaw, which I mentioned in my review. Final Fantasy’s major flaw, for me, lies in this aspect. When you’re playing a modern videogame, you expect great graphics because there can’t be actual actors in there. But when you’re watching a movie, and you know a living person would look better, you don’t like what you see. In other words, watching Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within didn’t do any good to me.
Stick back to those great RPG games. The Final Fantasy name should be linked to the videogames, and only to the videogames, forever.
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Comments
Morris wrote at 6/22/2002:
I wouldn't see this movie even if they payed me. I can't think of any recent movie that has had this effect on me where there's absoultely nothing, NOTHING, that attracts me to it on any level. Now this review comes and it's more definite than ever....:(
Groucho wrote at 6/22/2002:
Wow guys, thanks for the kind words!!! Thanks for trusting me!! *snif*LOL. You know, you should probably give it a shot... Who knows! Maybe it turns out to be one of your all-time favorites........ NOT!!!!!!!
Coffee wrote at 6/22/2002:
It really is a shame.. let's hold a five minute silence to honor all the time, effort and money (!) that was poured into this ambitious project.Too bad - sometimes it takes more than those three things to make a good movie.
;-)
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Jacinda wrote at 6/22/2002:
Wow, I didn't expect you to tear 'Final Fantasy' apart like this. Too bad. I was planning to see the movie this week. Your comments made me think about it though and I might change my plans. After all I trust your judgement. :)