Subject: Review: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

From: Edward Johnson-Ott <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 02:48:10 -0000

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Ming-na, Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Donald Sutherland, Ving Rhames,
Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin. Screenplay by Al Reinert and Jeff Vintar,
from an original story by Hironobu Sakaguchi. Directed by Hironobu
Sakaguchi. 106 minutes.
Rated PG-13, 1.5 stars (out of five stars)

Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly
www.nuvo.com
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The first image in "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is a
computer-animated close-up of a human eye. It's a beautiful piece of
work, remarkably detailed and quite convincing. When the picture pulls
back to reveal the owner of the eye, however, things change. The young
woman has mesmerizing hair, although it hangs too artfully – even by
movie standards – to be believed. The facial features are more detailed
than any computer-animation seen to date, but the result is more
reminiscent of a very well-crafted doll than anything human. She is
pretty, but bland, and not nearly expressive enough to come off like a
person.

All the characters in "Final Fantasy" are like that. Of the core group,
the younger white men and women are all athletic, attractive and
indistinct, like applicants for a TV reality show. The black man is
taller and burlier, and the aging scholar is bald, with wrinkles and a
beard. None of them appear to be based on individuals; they all look
like the products of general descriptions given a police sketch artist.

It gets worse when they talk and move. Why is the sarcastic voice of
Steve Buscemi, he of the great twisted face and snaggleteeth, coming out
of the mouth of some dreary Ken doll? Why, for every fluid physical
gesture, do we also see herky-jerky puppet-style motions? More to the
point, who decided a full-length computer animated movie featuring
"hyperReal" (their term, not mine) humanoids was a good idea?

"Final Fantasy" is based on a phenomenally popular video game I've never
played, with a story straight out of Japanese anime, which more often
than not leaves me bored and depressed. If you're a fan of either,
please spare me your letters, as I will focus solely on the finished
film and not its source materials. With an expression-challenged cast,
"Final Fantasy" mixes turgid action scenes with heaps of mystical shit.
The result is ugly, confusing and boring.

Note: The following reveals the basic plot. If you want to have a
fighting chance of making any sense of the movie, I suggest you read it.

Earth is at war with aliens that appear to feed on human souls. Most of
our planet is devastated, with humans living in a few protected cities.
While the bulk of the survivors focus on military strategies, Aki Ross
(voiced by Ming-Na) and her mentor, Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland), believe
in a more organic approach. They operate on the notion (quoting straight
from the press kit) "that all life forms have signature spirit waves
that can be identified and contained. Aki and Dr. Sid collect a series
of organic specimens whose spirit signatures combined will form a wave
of equal and opposite intensity to the spirit wave of the alien force.
The waves will, in effect, cancel each other out and disarm the foreign
contagion. They have collected six of the eight key spirits needed to
complete their wave. They are on a desperate hunt to find the remaining
two spirits before their time runs out."

Are you still with me? There's only a little more.

Aki is infected with the alien force. Dr. Sid has developed a method of
confining the contagion and keeping it from killing her, but the defense
wall won't hold much longer. Already, the alien is communicating with
Aki through her dreams. Aiding Aki and Dr. Sid are the Deep Eyes, a
group of hard-as-nails types that would have felt at home with the
troops in "Aliens." Capt. Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) heads the task
force that consists of a wise guy (Buscemi), a tough woman (Peri Gilpin)
and a gentle giant (Ving Rhames). Throwing a monkey wrench into the
plans is the requisite dumb ass: in this case General Hein (James
Woods), who wants to use the Zeus Cannon to bomb the aliens back to the
Stone Age, even if it destroys Earth as well.

So there you have it. Like most of the anime I've seen, the plot
combines apocalyptic settings, lots of shooting and fuzzy spirituality,
all wrapped up in a save-the-earth bow. But I'm bored with apocalyptic
settings. I understand why so many live-action films employ them –
they're cheap – but animated films can show anything, so why wallow in
an industrial trash heap?

The action scenes and shoot-em-ups don't satisfy either. The humans move
oddly and their facial features are so muted that the talented voice
cast can't bring them to life (in fact, their efforts merely emphasize
what we're missing). Aki is especially disappointing; with her lack of
expression and flat delivery, she looks and sound like a brunet version
of Weena, the Eloi girl from 1960's "The Time Machine." Drab color
choices and aliens that appear to have been created in Jell-O molds sap
the pizzazz from the big set pieces.

Students of computer animation may be fascinated with the technology
behind "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," but I found it sub-par
across the board. "Futurama" does more effective battle visuals, the
kids in "South Park" are far more expressive than these mannequins and
any old episode of the contemporary version of "The Outer Limits" does
better doom and gloom sci-fi. So who needs this? Not me.

© 2001 Ed Johnson-Ott

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X-RAMR-ID: 28923
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 235321
X-RT-TitleID: 1108683
X-RT-SourceID: 591
X-RT-AuthorID: 1099
X-RT-RatingText: 1.5/5