Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

-Story-

This being a film under a licence like Final Fantasy the filmmakers had to live up to a fairly high standard of storytelling. Well, unfortunately the film does not really succeed to this end. I really wanted this film to work out, but the story is complicated, and convoluted. The characters never really get a chance to develop and in the end we are left with a lacklustre effort that although pretty to look at makes little sense.

There have been some changes in this world that need to be noted right off the bat. 20years previously in the film history a meteor from an alien world crashed on the earth bringing with it phantasmic alien creatures that despite rhyme or reason have been slowly killing off the population of earth despite our best efforts to stop them. The remaining humans live in domed cities and are valiantly trying to make a last stand against these phantoms. We follow the adventure of Dr. Aki Ross, a scientist on this near future earth. Having come in contact with one of these phantoms she has begun receiving coded messages in her dreams from the aliens. She believes that these dreams, these messages might be the only chance for the salvation of the earth. So with the help of a band of deep recon soldiers she sets out to collect the pieces to this puzzle that might save us all. Of course she is plagued by an evil, bureaucratic, slightly megalomaniacal army general hell bent on her and the phantoms destruction. In other words, it the same old story. Haven’t we heard this one a hundred times before.?

Anyhow, the story starts out promisingly, but quickly degenerates into one big confusing mess. I’ve seen this movie maybe five times now, and although there are elements that are excellent, and I think I understand all there is toa bout the story, it’s still pretty befuddled. Maybe the writers were too used to scripting a 70+ hour video game, and couldn’t wrap their heads round a 2hour film; I’m not sure. I do know that in the end, most people won’t like this story, it’s too big for a film. Then again, it’d probably make a very nice video game.

It’s in the look that Final Fantasy really shines. This is an animated feature. Not just that but it was one of the first fully Computer animated features films. The Visual Effects Director, Mr. Takahiko Akiyama, and the Director Hironobu Sakaguchi, have managed to create, not totally lifelike people and places, but this film is definitely a large step along the way. For this film the producers built a brand new 14 million dollar animation studio in Hawaii, and let me tell you, it was worth it. The CG in this film is beautiful, the hairs on Aki’s head are all individually animated, the backgrounds are lush, the light and shadows are perfect. But hey, it’s still a cartoon. The day I can’t tell the difference between real and CG is a day I wait in eager anticipation of.

The other very effective component of this film was the art direction, and production design. The imagination to create such a fantasy could only have come from those who have been entrenched in the world of RPG video games for a long long time. And it really pays off. The technology is unique and exciting. The backgrounds, be it cityscapes, or the desolate alien world of Aki’s dream, are breathtaking. And the phantoms themselves are fantastic images. I was I think most impressed with the use of holograms in the film. All of the control panels used, all of the tech gear was all operated manually through the manipulation of holograms. This provided for some excellent shots, and gave a really needed hard sci-fi edge to the far fetched plot. Great work.

Well the acting here is really a pretty poor excuse for work if you ask me. I know it’s animated, so the real acting comes from the voices, but I’ve got to wonder, why would you bother assembling a cast of really quite good actors together, and then be satisfied with such bad performances. An actress I’m not familiar with Ming-Na voiced Dr Aki Ross, and she actually did a fairly decent job. The real trouble lay in the famous names that lent themselves to this project. Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, and Steve Buscemi all acted here to possibly their worst performances ever. They were wooden for one thing, which I might be able to attribute a little bit to the animation of mouths being so hard, I suspect they had to slow down their dialogue; but I don’t see that as any sort of excuse. The actors really took a nosedive in this film, just calling in their performances, and I think doing a real injustice to the film.

On the other hand the film’s director, Hironobu Sakaguchi, strikes me as a pretty cool cat. I was seriously unimpressed with his film at first watching, but after seeing the DVD with his commentary I think I can understand where he wascoming from. His interview on the DVD is in fact very informative. He knows quite well that certain elements of the film didn’t work; he knows that some people disliked it. And he goes so far as to admit that the film could have been made better. It’s not that I’m surprised to hear this, it’s just that the director usually isn’t the one saying it! He states pretty categorically that what he really wanted was for the studio to build him and his friends a brand new animation house. And guess what? He did it. They built him his studio, and at the end of the day, he’s won. He makes no pretence about it, and I respect that. Even if the film has some bad elements in it, at least it serves some peoples purposes.

See this film for the animation, don’t stress over the story, it’s weak. If you want a really good story, just stay away from this one.