Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (DVD 2002)

I bought this to add to my small collection of Sci-Fi films. In its day the quality of the CGI was utterly astounding, groundbreaking stuff, and it still stands good today. But this film has much more - not only is it well constructed around an interesting science-fiction premise, but it has good solid characters and a cracking plot. The overall effect is a film that rushes along leaving you goggle-eyed and breathless in its wake. A true classic.

I have always been interested in the final fantasy phenomonon, and after playing the games I remember being intrigued by the film which I happened to catch on tv quite a few years ago. However, recently I watched the new final fantasy film, advent children, and decided to rekindle my memory of the first film, spirits within.
The graphics are stunning to say the least, even if you're not a geek you can't help but wonder how they do it. The storyline is fairly solid, and with some good characters to back it up it does work well. However, I advise that if you have seen the new film, final fantasy: advent children, do not anticipate that it will be anything like it! Spirits within doesn't exactly represent any of the games that it originates from, however, it makes it watchable from any perspective, so you don't have to be a game fan to enjoy it.
The storyline is one of a futuristic city (I believe to be New York), which is surrounded by a ghost/demon infested world. It follows the story of a professor and his doctor with a theory on where these demons came from and why they are a threat to the human race, and they are on a race against time to prove their theory right and collect 'spirits' to help save the people of their city. Of course it wouldn't be an action film without a bad guy, or thing, so enter the official who wants to blow up something that lurks in a massive crater which is apparently connected to the source of these demons. The ending is not totally expected however, and I wasn't left disappointed.
You just have to have this film in your collection, it was the first one of it's kind and just showed how graphic technology has advanced. It's just stunning to watch.

Excellent graphics,you can seeevery eyelash and every hair as iff it were real. Very moving story. Bought it as i had seen it before and wanted to own it.

I wouldn't call this movie an animated feature! It's certainly not a Cartoon. It is however a heavily Computer generated feature, almost an art form, really. The first few moments are visually strange since you have to get used to the effect, not knowing whether the character's have substance or not.

The mind seems to adapt eventually to the visual wonder of this film though, accepting the graphics within their own heavily synthetic guise.

Set in the year 2065 (which doesn't seem that far ahead does it really)? If you like your Sci-Fi (as I do) and fancy something visually interesting, this one is probably worth a look.

It's the Alien invasion theme yet again, threatening human existence (if you can call the characters human). Even the disguise of presentation though cannot distract from the fact that inspiration may have been provided by other films of the past in these themes. (The alien phantoms bear a remote resemblance to previously viewed aliens seen elsewhere perhaps)?

Even the most stunning of visually generated effects though, cannot make up for a shear lack of humour and wit from the depicted characters which surely could have been generated even more glamorously with the fantasy factor theme in mind.

I was hoping for a revolution here. Something perhaps that may have been a first, such as the likes of Tron or even Watership down. Yes we have seen these conceptual style movies before and this one won't be treated any differently. Much seems to have been 'borrowed' unfortunately like the effects that seem so similar to your Jurasic park come Mummy returns technical styles. Perhaps all these newer films have been made on the same state of the art computers?

I'm not convinced this one will go down like the classics I'm thinking of though. I believe this visual style will be used yet again. Perhaps it would have been better suited for the first Tomb Raider movie rather than this kind of stuff?

What are really lacking are more emotionally moving and musical content, humour, wit and perhaps a philosophical triumph over evil rather than the brute strength aspect depicted so heavily in today's entertainment. At least though, a girl power element is present which is good.

I was hoping for an ending that would slowly merge into a real world scene using conventional imagery as I thought it would have added a nice finishing touch- almost like the Wizard of Oz's transition to colour perhaps?

As the voice I overheard in the background on my theatrical exit commented 'It wasn’t that bad, really'!!

I liked the sharp artwork and portrayal given to the characters generation though. Good vs. evil yet again. Somehow the style and fashion of the scheming general in the film (including the expression and clothing) looked so familiar to that of some disliked individuals or morons that may be around us in power or status today!