Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
***
Cinema
Releases - August 10, 2001
Certificate PG. 106 minutes. Directed by Hironobu
Sakaguchi, Motonori Sakakibara. Written by Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar; from
a story by Hironobu Sakaguchi; with additional dialogue by Jack Fletcher.
With the voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Peri
Gilpin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Keith David.
"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within"
is not the first animated movie to be created entirely on computers, but
it is the first to make a decent stab at attempting photo-realism. I am not
in favour of the idea that we should one day do away with human actors and
replace them with artificial creations, but "Final Fantasy" is a superb looking
one-off. At times its visuals look like something from a Playstation game,
but more often they're eerily lifelike, and therefore
hypnotic.
The film takes place decades from now, when alien
phantoms are well on their way to taking over the earth, and human military
forces attempt to fight them from space. Right-wing army men like General
Hein (James Woods) are in favour of using a giant nuclear cannon to blast
the goblins all to hell, but the heroes of the picture -- a young doctor
named Aki Ross (Ming-Na), and her mentor, Doctor Sid (Donald Sutherland)
-- recognise that for this operation big guns are useless.
Aki and Sid are proponents of a scientific theory
that states all living things are made up of different types of 'spirits'.
There are seven pure spirits in all, the essences of which are embodied in
different substances. They believe that they can combat the phantoms by using
a formula of spirits in a certain way, but they've discovered only five of
the spirits, and the powers that be have given them only a limited amount
of time to find the remaining two.
The movie mixes action scenes with moments of
scientific research and battles of wills between the militaristic and scientific
schools of thought. There is an interestingly mystical quality to some of
the plotting, while much of it is just sci-fi hokum. What makes "Final Fantasy"
noteworthy is the amazing visual style. When I first saw clips from the picture,
I had no idea it was based on a video game, and I would not have guessed;
it looks like original, otherworldly and stunning.
Also worth noting is that Aki Ross must be added
to the annals of the sexiest cartoon characters -- not quite as high up the
ladder as Wilma Flintstone, but further up than Jessica
Rabbit.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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