Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within

CGI movies ratchet another notch on the realism scale

Features the voices of: Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin, Ving Rhames, Donald Sutherland, James Woods
Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
written: July '01
I have no idea what the "Final Fantasy" game is like or if this movie does it justice or is simply a crutch to get it in the public's eye. Just have to go with what I saw. Premise: in the future a meteor has crashed to Earth and it carries phantom forms of the creatures from wherever. It's up to Aki, our Ripley-like heroine, to find the key for accomplishing just that.

Final Fantasy has astonishing imagery. In order to "film" these scenes, it was only necessary to create them and model them in a CGI app (credits show they used Maya) as opposed to designing sets, building them, allowing for camera movement, filming the tempermental actors and layering on the F/X afterwards. As a result, the movie has a fantastic look. Aki has nightwares relating to the phantom creatures which would be incredibly expensive to model with real sets but a snap with CGI.

The story borders on mystical, which probably will make hardcore SF fans piss and moan, but I say go with it.

On the other hand, it would have been nice if more effort went into the screenplay. While not as jaw-droppingly bad as Titan AE , the movie does suffer from a preponderance of cliched characters:

  • the aforementioned Aki, the Ripley-like heroine (at least she's not rendered as a triple-D cup, pouty-lipped, escapee from a porno movie bimbo).
  • Mr. Macho Military Guy, whom the heroine has a history
  • the military woman who's all business
  • Mr. Fixit-all, voiced by Steve Buscemi, who reruns his character from Armageddon , so wasn't that a stretch.
  • the elderly scientist mentor
  • the psychotic general who "knows" it's best for him to take matters into his own hands.

    Cliches come about for one reason: their characters provide a shorthand method of getting a point across. Quickly.

    So with the caveats out of the way, we can concentrate of the movie. And a strictly SF movie, Final Fantasy rocks pretty well. It's not an idiot-level flick where everything is spelled out for you from Frame One. Whether or not someone whines over the mystical underpinnings of the story is their perogative.

    The amount of computer modeling which had to be created for the virtual sets and characters is staggering. Shot after shot takes place in wholly new locations which had to be modeled. Buttons can be pushed, levers pulled, gears turn--none of these things are possible unless the virtual equipment is modeled beforehand to perform actions. A couple of times characters experience weightlessness. They are the finest examples of zero G put to film since there was no G to fight during the filming.

    Human characters are still the toughest nut to crack when it comes to realistic CGI. People key onto facial features and can immediately tell when something is not right. (That's why the new portraits on the counterfeit-resistant paper money are bigger.) The characters' facial expressions at times take on all the animation found in your typical department store mannequin. The eyes have a "dead" quality which is another CGI gotcha yet to be overcome. Having said all that, the lead female, Aki, is still light-years ahead of Shrek 's Princess in the realism department. Aki's hair moves uttterly realistically. (ABC News reported that twenty percent of the computing power utilized went towards animating her hair. Believe you me, it shows.)

    Not a perfect movie, but Final Fantasy is worth seeing if you want an SF-fix. It's admired much more for its technical expertise rather than its story, so you are cautioned.

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