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

From: Harvey S. Karten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 03:22:52 -0000

FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN

 Reviewed by Harvey Karten
 Columbia Pictures/Square Pictures
 Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
 Writer:  Al Reinert, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Jeff Vintar
 Cast: Voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Peri
Gilpin, Ving Ghames, Donald Sutherland, James Woods

   "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" was put together over a
four-year period by a team that was half-Japanese and half-
American, directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi--from a country that
has helped to popularize tofu (bean curd) in the United States. 
Why mention this?  There's an analogy to be found.  When tofu is
not used in its most basic form, a white, nutritious cake which
takes on the flavor of whatever surrounds it,  this miracle food is
in manufactured construct takes on the look and to some extent
the flavor of another edible that it's imitating.  Look on
supermarket shelves and you may find tofu milk, tofu burgers,
tofu hot dogs, tofu ice cream and several other varieties of ersatz
nourishment.  Can the tofu fool anyone into thinking that it's really
a burger or a hot dog? No way.  After all the money that has
gone into research, there's a significant distinction between the
curd and the meat or dairy product it's designed to emulate. 
What does this mean?  It means that the cruel slaughterhouses
of agribusiness will continue to churn out billions of deaths each
year to feed the American palate.  Will tofu ever replace pigs,
cows, lambs and chicken thereby eliminating the entire heartless
industry?  Maybe...let's hope so.  There's been quite an
improvement in the bean curd industry from its infancy when it
produced nothing short of offensive milk that you wouldn't
feed to your kitten.

   Same goes for "Final Fantasy."  The movie represents the first
time a real bid has been made to replicate human actors, a
potential union-busting technology which--even if it eventually
replaces Julia Roberts with her standard 20 million per picture
paycheck--still costs the producers a cool 140 million.  Is "Final
Fantasy" worth the price?  That depends on what you seek when
you pays your money and takes your choice.  If you're looking for
a cool story, you'll get nothing new.  The only thing that can be
said about this sci-fi narrative is that it is far superior to the
horrendous tale told in IMAX 3-D's "The Haunted Castle."  But
you don't go to IMAX films for the yarn: you go for the
technology.  Ditto "Final Fantasy."  That's why you'd be well
advised not to pass up Mr. Sakaguchi's visionary work, a genuine
breakthrough which may not be the equivalent of the introduction
of sound or 3-D or even Cinemascope but which could point the
way to near-perfect, non-actor-performed pictures in the future.

   Not that "Final Fantasy" dispenses with highly paid performers. 
The story, scripted by the director together with Al Reinert and
Jeff Vintar, employs the voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Steve
Buscemi, Donald Sutherland, James woods, Ving Rhames and
others--most effectively coordinated with the movements of the
computer generated lips of the cyberactors on the screen, but
we're not fooled.  There's something otherworldly about the
synthetic men and women on the screen who battle aliens,
although Dr. Sid, a humanistic scientist, looks most frighteningly
like the genuine article.

   "Final Fantasy," loosely based on a series of highly successful
video games, pits a group of scientists and military people
against an alien force that had been released when a falling body
crashed into the earth, killing human beings by sucking their
essence right out of them.  We actually witness the demise of the
people, who appear to be engaging in out-of-body experiences. 
Although the humanistic Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na) believes that
these aliens are not our enemies--they are simply confused and
searching for their roots--they certainly have us in the audience
fooled.   Politically, the non-alien characters are divided into
rightists and leftists.  The leftists, who include Aki and a guy
she's attracted to, Captain Gray (Alec Baldwin) as well as a
scientist called Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland), consider that the
way to send the aliens on the merry way is to channel the Earth
soul, or Gaia, an environmentally sound technique.  The right-
wingers, represented by General Hein (James Woods), want to
blast them all. The trouble with the latter approach is that human
beings will be killed as well as the spooky looking green dragons
and some unexplained creatures that spend their time running
some sort of marathon for reasons that only they may know.

   I'm not privy to any interviews of director Hironobu Sakaguchi
but I'd guess he'd say to critics and a general audience alike,
"Hey, guys, don't judge me by the story.  Appraise me strictly by
visuals."  Well, now, he's got a point.  While Dr. Aki Ross's hair
doesn't quite blow in the wind as much as does the hair of
models in a Clairol commercial, her eyes sure look real and she's
a most attractive fake.  The explosions, the look of the
oxymoronic Old New York which could have come from "Dark
City," the all-around futuristic structures that abound throughout
every scene in this ocular-arresting film make it a picture that no
movie buff will want to miss.

   When sound came around in 1929, there were skeptics who
said that it would never replace the silents.  However, when 3-D
was first introduced to the movies during the 1950's and then
improved on greatly during the IMAX era, people were tempted to
say that all movies would shortly be in three dimensions.  This
did not come to pass and will not. Even if the heavy glasses can
be dispensed with, there's something paradoxically artificial-
looking about the natural imagery of IMAX 3-D.  Will "Final
Fantasy" be a harbinger of things to come or will its technology
remain simply an alternate way of seeing films when you're in the
mood for novelty?  Hard to say, but I'd guess the latter.  Then
again I'm not from the generation that eschewed punch ball and
stick ball in the street in favor of staying home with video games
like The Sims, Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider.

Rated PG-13.  Running time: 105 minutes.  (C) 2001 by
Harvey Karten, [email-masked]

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