Product Description: The year is 2065. A meteor has crashed onto earth unleashing millions of alien creatures who roam the earth decimating field and city alike threatening to extinguish life itself. Prepare to be spellbound by an amazing woman the brave individuals at her side and an astonishing mission to save earth Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/26/2007 Starring: Voice Of Alec Baldwin Voice Of Ming-na Run time: 106 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Amazon.com: Earth is a desolate wasteland in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Humanity has been decimated by an invasion of Phantoms, insubstantial aliens that extract and devour the spirits of living things. The few remaining humans have retreated to a handful of cities that are protected by massive bio-energy shields. The beautiful Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na) and her mentor Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) have discovered that the energy signatures of eight key Earth spirits can cancel out and destroy the Phantoms. With the help of Captain Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his band of marines, they must scour the globe for the last two remaining spirits before General Hein (James Woods) manipulates the refugee government into attacking the aliens with an orbital laser that may also destroy the Earth.
Hironobu Sakaguchi's film is taken from the popular Final Fantasy video game franchise, which is particularly well suited to film adaptation with its series of original stories, but the movie features entirely new characters and settings. And like Toy Story and Shrek, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is completely computer generated. Unlike those cartoon comedies, though, The Spirits Within is a serious science fiction drama with astonishingly human digital actors. Aki, the female lead, appeared in a full-page spread in Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list--and was indistinguishable from the real-life models. The setting and conflict make for incredible action, but it's the larger issues, character interaction, and human elements that really make the movie shine. The Spirits Within is not simply a science fiction movie, in the same way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not simply a kung fu flick. The result is a fantastic summer movie with better action and more emotion than Pearl Harbor, and actors more lifelike than those in that other video game movie, Tomb Raider. --Mike Fehlauer
Definitely a gamers' movie Beautiful colors and brilliant animation with excellent voicings.
That's it. That's about all you can say about this rewarmed pot-boiler. Hackneyed plot, nonexistent character development, unsatisfying conclusion.
This is a film that will appeal to gamers and fans of anime. Everyone else can find better use for their ticket money.
A Classic! One of the best examples of CGI made movies ever made. And the sound is great. Even has a fairly good plot to it too. Once you start watching, you just have to see it through to the end. Great Movie!
This is a keeper OK so there are some problems with this movie in plot line, story and a disappointing ending, not to mention some bad (voice) acting. However I did enjoy the Gia story, I found it quite interesting as a philosophy. I write this review 8 years after the movie came out and it is still the reigning King of Computer Generated Graphic movies.
Great animation, not a particularly good movie FF: The Spirits Within is an entertaining enough movie. However, it lacks any real thematic depth and comes across as cartoonish, without any of the humor that is part of a normal cartoon. Ming-na's and Baldwin's performances are both pretty flat and without energy. Except for one scene in which the viewer finds out that the villain's family was killed by phantoms, he otherwise seems an uninteresting bloodthirsty caricature. Every invading alien/war movie cliche is eventually displayed in the movie, and by the end of the movie I didn't really care what ended up happening to any of the main characters.
On the other hand, the animation still looks state of the art even in 2009. The Phantoms are exceptionally creepy and well-designed. I'd check this movie out free from a library, but there are much better animated movies to spend one's money on. A better movie using this particular type of animation is "Beowulf."
A Visual Ride This CGI film is a story of Aki Ross, a scientist working with fellow scientist Doctor Sid in year 2065 to free the Earth of an apparently deadly alien race called the Phantoms which has driven humanity to survive in cities under energy domes known as Barrier Cities. Aki and Sid are against General Hein, who wishes to fire the Zeus cannon from space to annihilate the Phantoms, while injuring the Earth's "gaia" or spirit in the process. This was the first film to attempt to create a photorealistic computer generated world with 3D characters and for the most part it succeeds with flying colors. This film is one of the most delicious films to look at for the characters are expressive and realistic and the effects and set pieces are magical and beautiful. The voice acting is great and the script is interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining. From the fantastical first few minutes of the film, I was immediately pulled into a sci-fi world that held so much eye candy I could barely stand it, seriously. The visuals are absolutely stunning and just looking at the screen, I wanted to see more. The action began at once and I assumed that the whole movie would be intense and action packed. But I didn't expect the movie would take to the typical Asian slow-paced storytelling as the movie progressed because the opening sequences were so incredibly awesome and engaging, though the story never got boring. The animation is excellent, especially the human movements. The character's faces however--well you know they aren't real humans. They are believable and lifelike, but the facial animations don't recreate those of a real human. It is never distracting though because there is just so much else to look at in the film. The female lead, Aki is beautifully done and her character is likable and watchable. In the story, Aki and Sid team up with the Deep Eyes, a group of military warriors to defend the survivors of this apparent alien invasion. They struggle to learn about these aliens and how they might be able to eliminate them. When General Hein comes into the picture, planning to blast the aliens away with the Zeus cannon, Aki and Doctor Sid warn him that doing so will injure the Earth's own spirit. General Hein does not believe this, and does not care because he is looking to kill these aliens out of revenge. The voices are well done by known American actors such as Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland to name a few. The story sometimes drags along at points, and just when you think the end is near, there's another thirty minutes to wrap things up. But it can be forgiven because it's thirty minutes more of glorious visuals and eye candy. Things never get too weird, either, like in some other Asian films, and it never gets too complicated. If it all seems complicated at first, it really isn't, if you read the main premise beforehand. Any problems with the story I found, the visuals totally made up for that. It was an amazing feat of a film Hironobu Sakaguchi made for its visuals alone. After the movie ended, I wished right away for another movie with similar technology to be made. There have been, but not to the exact degree of this one. Fans of the "Final Fantasy" video game series will most likely be disappointed by this film. It has nothing to do with the video games, and I am surprised it was titled as a Final Fantasy film. If you go into seeing the movie with no expectations then that is probably the best way to watch the movie. No, scratch that--you can expect an amazing, truly, truly amazing visual roller coaster, and an entertaining story to go with it on top. It is a very good film, and I loved seeing it, twice. 8.9/10 stars
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