Final Fantasy: El espíritu en nosotros

It's a pity this movie failed at the box office, because in my opinion, it's really good. It combines combines the classic dystopic sci-fi future with a scorched Earth, a few heroes struggling against enigmatic aliens and a corrupt military force, action style sequences that are at times quite intense, and the typical slow-paced Asian movie storytelling. Add to this a rich amount of influences from the FF games, including eight mysterious spirits that must be found in time or the heroine will succumb, as well as a lot of mythological references that must be taken for granted rather than analysed to bits if the viewer is to find any pleasure in this film.

The trouble is that the FF video game fans wanted a story based on the games, or on their particular favourite in the series, and were disappointed with both the story, the setting and the characters. The average sci-fi movie fan, though, who ought to have loved the wicked general (excellently voice-cast by James Woods) and his huge space cannon, as well as the 'Aliens' styled surroundings and technology, was put off by all the talk about spirits and world souls. Leaving for a few of us who went to see the film with no real expectations, to enjoy it.

Because it is a good film. The animation is, for the most part, excellent, even if some scenes have a too blatant 'look what we can do' boast to them. Particularly all the scenes of Aki's hair waving in the wind. Personally, I didn't think the story was either too slow-paced, nor too weird. It works well, especially if you like Asian movies. For the European and American market, though, there's probably not enough action and too much talking.

If this movie had been released this year, it would probably have been given a better reception. The thought of fully computer animated films isn't as new and strange anymore, and with films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ring and Hero, the west is opening up for the Asian way of telling stories. I hope to see more films like this, at least if they are this well made. 9/10

Just to clear up a couple of points:-

a) This is a FILM, not a computer game. b) CGI people don't look or move exactly like real people. That stated, Aki Ross is still a more convincing character than ANYONE played by Keanu Reeves.

Final Fantasy is misnamed; there's little about the story that is "final", nor is it especially fantastic, but what it IS is a pretty decent mystical-science fiction (no, NOT "sci-fi" space opera) yarn. Possibly owing to the real inability to successfully portray facial expressions in the CGI characters, the mood throughout is sombre and hard... so rather more like real life than your average Hollywood space-opera swashbuckler. Frankly, because this story actually tries to make a POINT, it probably disappoints the type of viewer who would like a film like "Aliens". The overriding message is simply that brute force is no use without understanding, and that's a timeless message that many cultures would do well to think about.

And, of course, this film is just BEAUTIFUL. Probably best watched while tripping on acid, if the truth be told.

7/10 and a future classic, as far as I'm concerned. This film will be remembered long after things like "Starship Troopers" have been forgotten.

Different from movies like Advent children. I can see the fact that the planet has energy life like the one in final fantasy vii, but it honestly would have been better to just name it differently. The film is not bad at all, sci fi, apocalyptic and tragic with beautiful graphics but the story is too hard to follow (aliens that you don't understand if are bad or just a plague, or what's the point of the 8 spirits) and leaves you without answers at the end. Worth a watch maybe. For me 7.5.

It's not very usual that a movie based on a game turns out to be a stunning movie. But Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, however, is just that. The incredibly realistic characters and beautifully rendered backdrops in this movie make it a fascinating work of CGI. Unfortunately, its story falls short of anything but a rather boring Sci-Fi plot, which I'm sure is what caused it to be such a failure in the box-office.

The Spirits Within follows a young scientist named Aki Ross, who shares a belief with her colleague Dr. Sid that with the collection of 7 spirits they can stop an invading alien race and save the earth. Being a fan of the video game series of the same name, I remember getting pretty excited for this movie when it first came out. After seeing it for the first time, I could not figure out why in the world they would call this movie "Final Fantasy". Aside from a few subtle references to characters and themes from the video game series, it does not contain enough blatant similarities to possess the Final Fantasy title, and I feel like this should have been a more important goal in directing this movie. It was a great choice to have done this movie in CGI rather than in live-action, as one of the most captivating things about the Final Fantasy series are its fantastic cinematic scenes. To have a whole movie based on the quality of an epic Final Fantasy cinematic really shows the hard work that goes into creating all of these scenes. Every model in the movie displays a high level of detail from the main characters to the ships that they fly in. The freckles on Ross's face allow for intense close-ups. The subtle movements of their facial structures make them more interesting to look at. It's an art form that was very well presented in this film. In fact, this was the first full CGI film to feature fully realistic characters, modeled to look like real actors. The fact that it is a computer generated movie allows more freedom to conduct scenes and also set camera angles in places that would be impossible to get if it were shot in real life.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within portrays a mastery of computer generated imagery for its time. It's a fine tribute to the wonderful cinematics of the Final Fantasy series. But it doesn't possess a very original plot line, which doesn't even portray enough references to be called Final Fantasy, and should have just been another Sci-fi called "The Spirits Within".

It is the year 2065 and Earth has been invaded by a race of phantom-like aliens that kill with a single touch. Under the tutelage of Dr Sid, young Dr Aki Ross is searching for spirits that can combine to counteract the life force of the aliens – a situation made even more urgent by the fact that she is infected by the aliens herself and experiencing strange dreams as a result. Ross joins the elite military unit Deep Eyes to finish her quest, but General Hein is determined to convince the ruling council that the best solution is the use of a weapon that will destroy the aliens despite Sid's protests that it could destroy the Earth in the process.

This film got a lot of publicity about the fact that it was billed as the film that would trigger a whole new type of movie – those with no human stars (well, apart from their voices). Sadly this seemed to be all the discussion about the film amounted to and I think it put people off that nobody talked about the plot or whether it was any good or not – I know it put me off from bothering to go and see it. Another thing that put me off was that most people just assumed it was a kid's film because it was animated and was quickly dumped in matinee slots – even when I saw it on TV it was in the slot on Sunday afternoon used for mostly kiddie fare. Anyway, let me just say that I have no knowledge of the games, never played the games and will likely never play the games but I had no problem picking up the rough story (even though I'm sure the wider FF universe has so much more story in it that this film does). I would have quite liked a greater understanding of the story, the characters and the aliens but it did enough to support the film's plot as was.

As a sci-fi film it works reasonably well but is not as intelligent as it clearly needed to be to support the story – if it had only aspired to be a good guys/bad guys story then fine but it wanted more and it isn't well enough developed to do it. I still enjoyed it to a certain degree but it is evident from the film that the script writing and plotting took a backseat to the development of the computer graphics. Of course these look great for the most part and the film has delivered a visually impressive series of spaceships, desolate cityscapes and blobby aliens. The only things that don't work (ironically enough considering the film's boasts) are the human characters. CGI has yet to manage to make characters that look and move as naturally as humans – we have seen it in Matrix Reloaded, Blade 2 and also here. Admittedly it matters less here because we can get used to the characters looking like effects (unlike, say, Matrix 2 where we are not meant to notice the difference between real and effect). Suffice to say though, that this is an animated movie rather than the movie that triggers the onslaught of computer generated characters in films.

The voice cast are pretty good and they do well to add a bit of a human touch to characters that, for all the money spent on them, still look and movie like computer game characters in an expensive cut-scene between levels. Ming-Na hardly has that distinctive a voice and she is rather bland at times but she does OK. Baldwin is a strong voice and suits his character well. Sutherland is always welcome despite his small role and typical roles are filled by the likes of Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Keith David and a typically untrustworthy performance from James Woods.

Overall this is an OK sci-fi film but not any more than that. The plot is OK but it isn't as good as it thinks it is and certainly isn't good enough to support the slightly complex themes/ideas that it wants to deliver. It is good for older children and teenagers (who will happily ignore the plot details) but outside of that sci-fi fans may find it a bit lacking in bite and generally to be more about the graphics than anything else.