Critic Reviews
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Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader
I never stopped marveling at the thousands of individually delineated pores and hair strands of the heroine, but the thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.
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Todd McCarthy, Variety
This bigscreen adaptation of the long-popular interactive computer game is visually impressive if not dramatically cool, and is marked by "acting" that is no worse than that found in the majority of sci-fi films.
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Trevor Johnston, Time Out
The human figure, however, remains a challenge to current CGI technology, since the detailing of hair and freckles, for instance, proves rather more credible than the marionette-like impression created by cold eyes and oddly unconvincing body movements.
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Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
The exercise is so elaborately pointless you'd think the Pentagon had bankrolled it.
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Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
A mesmerizing technical achievement.
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Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
After you're done marveling at the characters' semirealistic way of moving and the freckles and minor imperfections that dot their skin ... it's all too easy to get hung up on the things that make them seem clumsy and awkward.
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Nell Minow, Common Sense Media
First computer animated movie to "star" actors.
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Philip French, Observer [UK]
It's possible that the effect might be different if this were not a soggy, derivative SF movie and we had more to engage and divert us.
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Felix Vasquez Jr., Cinema Crazed
Despite the utterly amazing animation and exciting action, this is nothing like its source material and is very disappointing in the end.
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Christopher Smith, Bangor Daily News (Maine)
It's a paradox--it's at once exhilarating yet exhausting, thrilling yet boring, masterful yet banal.
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Joe Lozito, Big Picture Big Sound
From a strictly visual standpoint, the film is like nothing you've ever seen. In terms of story, however, you've seen it all before.
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John Venable, Supercala.com
The story is well written and incredibly smart, but probably a bit too spiritual for western audiences.
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Jeffrey Overstreet, Looking Closer
Even in the world of the digitally perfect, a black man seems doomed to be a disposable sidekick, and the heroine must represent every feminist ideal at once.
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Eric Lurio, Greenwich Village Gazette
It's all very complicated and makes one lose interest quickly.
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Brian Mckay, eFilmCritic.com
A lot of painstaking work went into this . . . Unfortunately, the main story becomes nearly incomprehensible . . . and the last ten minutes or so just feel like drudgery.
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Harry Guerin, RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland)
The plot itself is convoluted sci-fi fare, taking in elements of botany, biology and philosophy, but it makes more sense than Pearl Harbor and the cast seems a lot more human.
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John R. McEwen, Film Quips Online
A delight, rising well above the standard animated action formula.
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Chris Gore, Film Threat
It looks like a video game intro.
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Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Visually stunning computer-animated sci-fi flick that unfortunately betrays its video-game origins with poor characterisation, an appalling script and a badly thought-out plot.
Read all 19 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Holy uncanny valley Batman!
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The first final fantasy film ever made and it seems as though they brought the videogame, which I am not a fan of, to life. The live action movie is much more enjoyable and fun to watch, however they need to make more, really describing the outline of final fantasy, because it just… More
The first final fantasy film ever made and it seems as though they brought the videogame, which I am not a fan of, to life. The live action movie is much more enjoyable and fun to watch, however they need to make more, really describing the outline of final fantasy, because it just places you in the middle of a random story out of the videogame!
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This sci-fi adventure, based on a popular computer game, was highly touted as the first film completely computer-generated in a photo-realistic style, and much of the animation is truly stunning. However, the story is incoherent, betraying its video-game roots, and the characters are… More
This sci-fi adventure, based on a popular computer game, was highly touted as the first film completely computer-generated in a photo-realistic style, and much of the animation is truly stunning. However, the story is incoherent, betraying its video-game roots, and the characters are boring; the stunning animation doesn't extend to facial expressions or lip movements.
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I think I saw this. It obviously wasn't too memorable though, even though the effects were top notch.
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Cool, you can make almost photo-realistic computer animated characters. Now try to invest that time in a better script. And by script i don't mean the Aliens fanfic someone wrote on weekends.
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the only good thing about this movie was the incredible CGI. other than that... this was a disaster!
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The computer animation is amazing but I wasn't really very keen on the storyline.
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Great animation. It becomes creepy to see computer animation of human actors become so lifelike, yet clearly isn't. The story slowly plodded along, with seemingly more talky scenes than action. I never understood how Final Fantasy turned from a cute Japanese Fantasy role-playing… More
Great animation. It becomes creepy to see computer animation of human actors become so lifelike, yet clearly isn't. The story slowly plodded along, with seemingly more talky scenes than action. I never understood how Final Fantasy turned from a cute Japanese Fantasy role-playing adventure to a grown-up futuristic science fiction setting.
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Interesting CG anime full of manga new age spiritualism and spectacular japanese design. The rather cliched story does not measure up to the impressive visuals, but it's a brave stab at creating a serious and believable "adult" animation.
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A demo-reel at feature-length. Uh, at least it is a very pretty demo-reel.
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Not as good as Advent Children, but still worth seeing once. Lacks in story and characters, but still pretty much okay.
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This movie is underrated. Not amazing, but it got panned and I don't really know why. Hell, it was better than Advent Children.
I think any Final Fantasy project outside the realm of the video games is doomed to failure.
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[font=Arial][color=darkred]'Final Fantasy' is an exciting venture in the history of animation. It's the second video game to be turned into a feature film this summer, though exponentially better than 'Tomb Raider'. It took the makers of 'Final… More
[font=Arial][color=darkred]'Final Fantasy' is an exciting venture in the history of animation. It's the second video game to be turned into a feature film this summer, though exponentially better than 'Tomb Raider'. It took the makers of 'Final Fantasy' four years and the creation of new technology to capture what will be a benchmark in animation for years to come.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]The story concerns a future Earth where aliens have crashed and invaded long ago. These "phantoms" are slightly invisible energy creatures of different size and roam around various areas with the ability to suck the life force or soul from a human being. General Hein (James Woods) is trying to convince the Earth council to allow him to fire a satellite called the Zeus Cannon to obliterate the alien menace. In opposition to Hein is Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) who believes with his adventurous pupil Aki Ross (Ming-Na) that the Zeus Cannon will obliterate the "spirit" of Earth. Their solution it to collect eight spirits in whatever forms they might be including plants and small animals to gather together and… do something that will send the alien life force repelling. Now I know Hein is supposed to be the bad guy as he's a military man complete with the evil looking black leather cloak, but I couldn't help but find myself agreeing with his logic. He wants to use something that has already been proven to kill the aliens whereas these two new age scientists want to collect a bunch of plants and animals and have their collective spirits ward off the interplanetary menace. I'd stand in my chair and say thank you to Hein when he dismisses the doctor's plot. I know that Aki and Sid are the heroes and of course whatever theories they have will be proven true, but hell, I found myself agreeing more with General Hein than these two.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]Complicating matters Aki is infected with a piece of the alien phantom that is slowly taking control over her body. Along in her quest to discover the final spirits is aided by a military commander Grey (Alec Baldwin) and his company of men. Turns out Grey and Aki are former sweethearts, so of course expect them to reconcile before the end credits.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]The plot consists of something that could be an average episode on 'Star Trek: Voyager' but does meander along at times. The dialogue is typical sci-fi buzzwords like "Fire in the hole" "The perimeter's been breached" and the sort. 'Final Fantasy' does have great excitement to it and some terrific action sequences better than most anything this summer. The ending is a disappointment as all the action hinges on two globs of energy propelled against one another. Globs or energy are not exciting. I thought we would have learned this by now.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]'Final Fantasy' is a landmark in animation. Never has so much detail been put into a movie and pulled off so amazingly well. To the nit-pickers out there the animation isn't exactly the Holy Grail of photo-realism, but it's closer than anything ever before. At times the characters come off as too plasticy (like Jude Law in 'A.I.') and tend to move too much, notwithstanding that their mouths don't always follow the words coming out of them. Put aside these small grievances and what you have is stunning animation that makes one constantly forget it is animation. There are numerous moments of eerie precision like when a character's nostril flares and their nose scrunches up in response, and the movement of every one of Aki's 60,000 strands of gorgeous hair, to even a kiss between two characters. Even inanimate objects like a crumbled wall, a glass of alcohol, or a gun and its rounds are given startling accuracy. Backgrounds and scenic vistas are beautifully rendered with great care. There has been nothing ever like 'Final Fantasy' before and it is the first movements toward an exciting area in animation.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]The discussion must be raised can actors be phased out by computers now and will they ever? No, never. Actors can portray nuances that computers will never be able to master. Despite Freddie Prinze Jr.'s best attempts to prove otherwise, we will always need actors. Now that you have the near photo realism one might be led to question what is the greatness of creating a fully realistic looking CGI tree when one can just be shot on film for millions of dollars cheaper. The all CGI world will not replace the real world of film making.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]The mediocre story can be excused by the awe-inspiring animation. Despite the clunker of a plot 'Final Fantasy' is entirely enjoyable because it always gives the viewer something to sit in wonder and take in. There's always something to mesmerize the eyes on screen.[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]And what's the deal with all these titles with hyphenated extra names to them?[/color][/font]
[font=Arial][color=darkred]Nate's Grade: B[/color][/font]
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With groundbreaking animation, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within delivers the first photorealistic computer animated feature. However, the story is insanely bizarre; alien ghosts are attacking humanity and threatening the planet's Gaia. Yet the animation is amazing, delivering… More
With groundbreaking animation, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within delivers the first photorealistic computer animated feature. However, the story is insanely bizarre; alien ghosts are attacking humanity and threatening the planet's Gaia. Yet the animation is amazing, delivering some truly astounding visuals. And the film is well cast, and includes Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, and James Woods. But as interesting as the film is, the story drags it down. Still, despite its issues, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is an amazing technical achievement, and is a fun and entertaining science fiction film.
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Compared to the best anime films this isn't as good but as a stand alone film it would have been way better. By that I mean if this was live action and had nothing to do with anime then I would have gotten a higher rating. This featured a great story with great emotion. I have no… More
Compared to the best anime films this isn't as good but as a stand alone film it would have been way better. By that I mean if this was live action and had nothing to do with anime then I would have gotten a higher rating. This featured a great story with great emotion. I have no idea what the critics are saying. I think they're just mad because this is a huge franchise. I'm not a fan mostly because I don't play video games anymore. The only thing I like about this is Steve Buscemi's voice acting. That last scene was emotional and moving so don't listen to the critics.
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The ideas are intriguing and the film is a visual marvel buts its too bad the characters are basically cliches because the film could have been one of the better animated films in recent memory.
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The story is over-complicated and the CGI work is, with hindsight, overrated, but this is actually a pretty good film. I'm not in the least bit familiar with the Final Fantasy universe of computer games, but was still able to enjoy this suprisingly emotional and quite exciting… More
The story is over-complicated and the CGI work is, with hindsight, overrated, but this is actually a pretty good film. I'm not in the least bit familiar with the Final Fantasy universe of computer games, but was still able to enjoy this suprisingly emotional and quite exciting film. The voice work by Ming-Na (ER, The Joy Luck Club), Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi and Peri Gilpin (Frasier) is very good, and though the film sometimes drags it come together in the final third and has a rather unconventional and beautiful ending.
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This movie is definately underrated by everyone. Its visuals, characters, and plot are completely compelling. I liked it, and I've never even played one of the games.
Read all 20 featured audience ratings
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