dannyboymw
I'm writing this review two hours after seeing the movie for the first time. And after glancing through the reviews of both users and critics, I haven't seen a review that fully represents the movie accurately. The critics acknowledge the visual beauty but claim the plot is convoluted and that the performances are bad. Yes, visually, The Spirits Within is beautiful, even 16 years later. A couple lines were flat, sure, and the dialogue was occasionally (in the last 30 minutes) a little hokey, but not to the point of making the movie, itself, bad.On the other hand, those who have given it high ratings say that the poor reception is a result of the west not used to Asian storytelling. I like anime and adore the Final Fantasy franchise, and Asian Cinema is among the best there is. I'm not going to talk about the visuals or the "asian way of doing things", because both have been done to death and I thought were fine. I am going to talk about the story and characters.The first 25 minutes was great. World building, exposition, and character introductions were handled masterfully. In short, it was set up to be a great movie. The minutes devoted to developing plot points and the main characters were also done well, where the movie suffers is when it hits the back half. For those who have seen the movie, the pros are obvious, so I will only address the cons. Starting with, in my opinion, the biggest flaw.the following contains story spoilersThe Antagonist: the General is introduced and set up beautifully, but early on he is suspicious of Gray, when he has no reason to be. From that point, he behaves with evil intent, but we are never told his reason for the way he is until he makes his move. For most of the movie, he is just bad for the sake of being bad, with no motivation what so ever, and when we are finally told it was, for me, unsatisfying. As a military man, it is his job to protect humanity from all invading forces (which the Phantoms appeared to be), but collateral damage be damned because "phantoms killed my wife and child." His objective for the entire movie is to fire the Zeus Canon and so he drops the shield to motivate the council to action, but when his plan backfires his change of heart comes out of nowhere, and so of course the only logical thing to do is commit suicide (again coming out of nowhere), but it has to be done in front of the computer that controls the Zeus Canon. Did I say he had a change of heart? When the council approves use of the canon, all remorse for his actions disappear because his plan succeeded, and collateral damage be damned! When he assumes command of the orbital space canon, they realize that if they fire on the target, civilians will be killed, but since they are in the way of the General's objective he doesn't care. Naturally the crew doesn't question it and they fire the canon to the point of the system over heating. Since the general is overcome with obsession (again, coming out of nowhere) he overrides the system and keeps firing until the canon, and him, explode. To be clear, I have no issue with his decent into madness or any of the things he does. I think he had potential to be a great antagonist, but each development in his character has no reason for it. His motivation does not explain his actions. As it is, he was a criminally undeveloped character.The hanger scene: they left Ryan injured by the car with a gun. Sid was supposed to go back with his medical kit, but once he got to the ship, he just stayed there. Jane had time to find energy packs and return, but the doctor didn't have time to find a med pack (which is probably in a very specific place), or maybe he just didn't care. We don't know because the story also forgot about Ryan until it was convenient for him to save the day... why wasn't he fighting earlier? If he was in range, there were plenty of phantoms to be shooting at, particularly when Neil and Jane died... was he just watching that happen? In speaking of which, when Jane unloaded the rifle a) the fact that the rifles had limited ammo was distracting since up until that point, as far as we knew, they had unlimited ammo b) Neil had a gun. Why didn't she use Neil's gun. He didn't use it in that scene. Was he carrying an unloaded gun the whole time?Conclusion: It is an entertaining movie, but since it had a terrible antagonist and convenient Deus Ex Machina's, it is not a great movie.
Dalbert Pringle
I can still clearly remember when Final Fantasy was first released back in 2001. It was kind of a strange movie release 'cause nobody raved about it. Nobody marvelled at it. And nobody (including myself) went to see it. Final Fantasy came and went without even as much as a whimper. It was a weird phenomenon. Final Fantasy was "The-Movie-That-Wasn't".Over the years about the only thing, anywhere near to an opinion, that I've heard about Final Fantasy is that it is unbelievably "boring". Yeah, B_O_R_I_N_G! I guess word-of-mouth of this sort kept people away in droves. It's really amazing sometimes what one, little word like "boring" can do to the fate of a flick.Well, I, for one, certainly didn't find Final Fantasy "boring". To be honest, the story was a bit dry, the action a bit slow at times, but, all-in-all, it did hold my interest for the most part. Yeah, I'll admit that "War Of the Worlds", it ain't. But, hey, I didn't expect it to be, anyways. So, I wasn't disappointed.Where Final Fantasy excels (to the 10th power) is visually. It is an absolute delight to behold. The attention to detail in all the computer-generated imagery is nothing less than fantastic.Any short-comings that Final Fantasy's story may have will be immediately forgiven if you simply treat this movie as basically a feast for the eyes. If you do so, then you won't feel let down when the story doesn't meet any of your preconceived expectations, or if it doesn't go accelerating into high-gear.Final Fantasy's story is set in the future. Natch. The year is 2065. Mankind is on the brink of total extinction after our Earth is infested with alien Phantom-Spirits that feed ravenously on the human life-force.Our quickly dwindling human population is forced to live within great, domed cities. These cities are now the last and only refuge for Man. A specially engineered force-field engulfing the entire city shields these last remaining citizens from being totally annihilated by the ferocious Phantom-Spirits.Top scientists within the city are frantically searching for a means to successfully combat these menacing spirits, yet retain and protect our planet's fragile environment.WOW!! Now, does that sound "boring" to you!?.....Check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised at how non-boring Final Fantasy really is...... :)
insomniac_rod
I have to be perfectly honest with you fellow IMDb reviewers. I went to the movies with a girl I was getting lucky with. We went to watch this movie because it had a long duration and because I had to warm things up with her. She ended up liking it very much and I almost fell asleep. But don't get me wrong, the movie isn't bad at all. It has a charming lead female character, an interesting plot, spectacular f/x, and it tries to follow perfect the best of the video game.The problem in my opinion with this movie is that it looks a lot like the video games. The animation is really great but it isn't something you haven't seen before. It feels like a video game, and it lacks of that special punch some movies of these kind need.I recommend it strictly for fans of the video game.
