Review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) by Wesley B — 20 May 2017

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within's photorealistic animation is groundbreaking and most of it still stands the test of time pretty well. The main protagonist of Aki Ross is wonderfully realized although it saddens me to see that Square's plan to make her the first artificial actress to appear in more than one film didn't work.

She only ever left this movie for a small demonstration video before the same studio that made this movie made that amazingly crafted segment "Final Flight of the Osiris" in The Animatrix. Some of the action was decent as well.

Sadly the film is a Final Fantasy movie in-name-only as it has so little to do with Final Fantasy. While I know that each of the original games has different characters, with the direct sequels showing the Roman numeral accompanied by the regular numerical format - you know, Final Fantasy X-2? - this one serves as more of a stand-alone film than an actual FF movie.

Not even an inside joke relating to one of the other games? Especially considering that Aki doesn't even appear in a Final Fantasy game, neither before nor after the film. Apart from that, the film also has a dull story, an ending which, for me, was disappointingly rushed and a protagonist who doesn't even participate in any of the action sequences.

While she is more about intellect and resourcefulness , I'm at least expecting her to shoot some of those Phantom baddies in the face. The film pretty much is as what it is, a PG-13 animated sci-fi flick that has its moments with animation that showed that CG has already come a long way even though the first ever computer-animated film had only been released 6 years ago but overall lacks real emotion.

At least you tried with Aki Ross, Square and I'll give you some credit for that.