Review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) by Matthew S — 06 Sep 2009

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the reason I think that CG really didn't take any sort of bold leaps in America after Pixar got the ball rolling. With a loss of $94 million dollars, this was a huge setback to the idea of a photorealistic film entirely in CG. But the film wasn't that bad, and it certainly didn't recieve as much attention as it deserved. While I don't think the film really had anything at all to do with Final Fantasy, and probably would have done better without the brand attached to it, the film is a thing of beauty.

The plot incorporates many philosopical concepts, including the Gaia Hypothesis and the idea of a life-force shared amongst all creatures. The main charachters aren't quite as believable as a real human might be, but they get the job done. The only major issue I have with the film is the action sequences, which are poorly made and have little in the way of tension. Also, they are spaced too far apart, which causes parts of the film to drag. Sadly, the failure of this film destroyed fledgling Square Pictures, which could have gone on to create something truely great. Instead, we have to sit through tripe in vein of Delgo.