Review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) by Jess K — 12 Aug 2009

As a fan of the Final Fantasy series since the very first game was made available in America (when I was 9 years old), I was extremely excited to hear that the franchise which helped define video games as a storytelling medium was moving into feature films.

Like the games, the technical aspects of the film surpass anything else of the time (that extra money spent on developing Aki's hair is easily apparent), but unlike the games the story was uninteresting and disappointing (with ambiguous ending more jarring than poetic).

Emphasis was clearly placed on the tiny physical details, such as the way Aki's eyes flutter, while larger cinematic issues were ignored. Ultimately FF:TSW is a 5-star technical achievement/experiment, saddled with a 1-star story.

Unfortunately the film's financial failure forced Square to close its Hawaii studio, and likely curtailed their future ambitions (at least until Advent Children hopefully revived them).