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

From: Jon Popick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 22:27:08 -0000

Planet Sick-Boy: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"

© Copyright 2001 Planet Sick-Boy. All Rights Reserved.

Tomb Raider has, at press time, already inhaled over $115 million at the box
office, throwing the gauntlet down to this summer's other big
videogame-turned-feature-film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.  The game
is wildly popular, selling over 33 million copies of its nine different
versions since 1987.  While the film version probably won't be nearly as
beloved, it is the first major motion picture to feature computer-generated
people who look real (other than the occasional character, like Toy Story
and Princess Fiona in Shrek), and that's got to count for something, right?
Even if the story is really bad, right?

The story is just as lame as Raider's and any other console-to-screen film,
but Raider had a lot more fun reaching its inevitable conclusion than most.
Fantasy's game creators, who also have all of their hands in the film, pride
themselves on creating new stories and new characters each time out, but
neither are anything you haven't seen a bunch of times before.  It's
frustrating to hear about the detail, time and manpower put into animating
the 60,000 hairs on the main character's head when so little thought went
into the story.

The film is set in 2065 - several decades after "they" took over, or so a
narration tells us.  "They" are a group of indestructible alien phantoms
that gobble the energy out of the human form like meat off a chicken wing
bone.  Fantasy's heroine, scientist/physician Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na,
ER), has been infected by the aliens and is in search of an environmental
treatment that will both cure her and save the planet from total domination.
Together with Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland, Space Cowboys), she has determined
that collecting eight "spirits" will do the trick.  Aki has six now, and
heads to Old New York City to find the other two.

It is here she meets Captain Gray Edwards and the Deep Eyes squadron (which
sounds like a kitschy garage band), who protect the few remaining citizens
living under the giant protective dome that covers a big chunk of Manhattan.
Gray (Cats and Dogs' Alec Baldwin, providing his second "voice" job in the
last two weeks) and his crew (Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin and Ving Rhames)
help Aki and Dr. Sid in their quest to find the missing spirits, which must
be done before the evil General Hein (James Woods, Scary Movie 2) unleashes
the giant, space-based Zeus Cannon on the alien meteor, which landed in the
Caspian Mountains.  See?  It's good vs. evil, with a whole environmental
message thrown in for good measure.

As silly and downright confusing as it is, the story (penned by director and
game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi and Apollo 11 scribe Al Reinert) is
largely inconsequential.  How powerful is the ability of computer animation?
It can make Buscemi into an attractive man, for Pete's sake.  But seriously,
folks, the characters are so frighteningly lifelike (especially Dr. Sid)
that it becomes distracting, which I guess actually helps the story in a
way.  If you look hard enough, you can find plenty of flaws (especially in
the mouth movement when the characters talk), but don't bother -  this still
looks pretty goddamn incredible.

As a side note, the filmmakers should get some credit for not making Aki
into an impossibly busted cybervixen (a la Lara Croft).  Considering the
film's target audience (and the inability to get laid attendant thereto),
it's quite a pleasant surprise.

1:53 -PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

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