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Review: Final Fantasy
Yes, the animation is fine, occasionally terrific. There is no acting to speak of, and how could there be? There are only disembodied (like Godzilla) voices -- Ming-Na (Dr. Aki Ross), Alec Baldwin (Capt. Gray Edwards), Ving Rhames (Ryan), Steve Buscemi (Neil), Donald Sutherland (Doctor Sid) and James Woods (the evil General Hein).
The overall affect is cold and fake. Obviously, animation has warmed up the cartoon genre (Toy Story, Shrek) giving the characters color, depth, expression and dimension. But it has the reverse effect on traditional films, at least if Final Fantasy is any indication.
If software has given added depth to animated films, the characters in Final Fantasy don't quite make it to one-dimensional. They appear slow-moving, a click behind their own emotions, and utterly unbelievable and remote. The real actors doing the voice-overs are dramatic, almost desperate, to give the story some life. They can't. Beyond that, the plot is just stupid, a loopy, quasi-religious narrative that posits that aliens landed on the earth years earlier, and have since ferociously gobbled up most of its people and cities, for reasons that are never explained, and for that matter, are apparently inexplicable. Like seemingly every other sci-fi, game-based or techno-centered movie in the last decade, Final Fantasy takes place largely in a destroyed New York City. (Why is it always in a ruined Manhattan? The tall buildings?)
The ghostly aliens are squiggly, gummy, amoeba-like things (though some look like translucent dragons and serpents) that nobody on the Earth understands but Dr. Ross. They kill by contact rather than weaponry, swirling around their targets like mist. The nasty General Hein doesn't like science or scientists or people who are nice, and wants to blow the aliens all to Hell.
Dr. Ross's allies are her software-lover Capt. Gray Edwards, who makes Buzz Lightyear look like Robert DeNiro, and some heroic, cartoon cut-out soldiers. There's even a software kamikaze scene meant to be touching (nothing can make you care about these creatures.) Dr. Ross is attractive but never makes it to sexy. The coded characters all seem to have mastered the sad expression and the smile, but can't go any deeper. Dr. Ross and Dr. Sid exchange spirit mumbo-jumbo for nearly half of this movie's interminable 105 minutes. There isn't a single decent battle scene, for God's sake, blasphemy in a movie that purports to herald the ascent of the computer game over the traditional film.
Final Fantasy is bad news for moviegoers, but great news for human actors. It turns out there are still some things humans do a lot better than software.
I thought Ben Affleck couldn't act after suffering through Pearl Harbor. I found his role in this movie much more lifelike. It's good to see actors taking on more challenging roles.
I've seen Katz off-base before, but it's obvious he didn't understand a thing in the movie - nor, it seems, did he try to.
;P )
;P (I *think* the plot of the movie was conceived around the time FF7 was popular - and the influence shows)
;P ) - but overall, they've pushed the envelope for realism in animation.
Perhaps the audio track was a bit off in the theatre he went to -- I don't know -- but in our theatre, the sound was synced pretty well -- there were a couple of spots where the sync was a *little* off - but not so much as to be the annoyance Katz makes it out to be. Buscemi's character seemed to get the worst of the desyncing, but again, it wasn't the bother Katz made it out to be.
The voice acting was pretty damned good, if you ask me - it may be that I'm an anime fan, and have suffered through hackdubs, and poorly acted voices more than most. I especially liked the fit of Donald Sutherland's voice to Cid - it matched VERY well (other than the "warm" line
Now - about the plot. Sure - it was a bit contrived. Some of the character development seemed a bit rushed - but overall, it wasn't bad. Katz missed the point of the plot - probably because he was so bothered by the sound - I don't know - but his analysis is pretty much totally off-base. I won't give it away - but if you've played FF7, you'll be wondering where Aerith is at the end
The animation was phenomenal. It takes a *lot* to get *so* close to looking real. Some of the movement was a bit off (but very, *very* close - and some of the faces were a bit...strange (James Wood's character, the general, seemed to have been distorted into an evil mask - noone's that angry all the time
Especially the eyes. It's awesome to see animated characters whose eyes have real "depth" to them.
Now - all this being said, I think it didn't *quite* live up to the Final Fantasy name. DOn't get me wrong - it was a great movie - but there are a few Final Fantasy elements that were sorely missing.
First was the lack of medieval flair -- most (FF8 not included) Final Fantasy games all had a mixture of medieval swords & sorcery with high technology - that was part of what gave them their distinctive "flavor". This movie was ALL high-tech, and even a little bit on the military side -- kindof like a deeper Aliens movie.
A side note to this was the lack of Magic in general -- I was really looking forward to seeing Ultima being cast on the big screen - or even a couple Summons (Shiva? Ifrit? Bahamut?). Sadly, none made it into this movie, although one of the alien critters looked a bit like Leviathan...
The lack of Airships was bothersome - yes - they had the various spacecraft - and they were well-designed, but again, were lacking the flair of the grandiose FF airships.
The most glaring error, however, was the lack of a single, solitary Chocobo.
It's for these reasons that I think the movie, although very,. VERY good, didn't quite live up to the Final Fantasy name that was placed on it. Had it been simply called "The Spirits Within", I wouldn't have had a single problem with it.
...and it shows when you say things like:
I have played the game(s), and a lot of the point was deciphering what the "real" plot was. In the beginning it often did seem to be a simple "the mad Queen must be stopped", but always there were multiple layers of truth and reality that had to be peeled away to reveal the true motivation of the game. And there was lots of questing for things along the way too. I think you're reviewing the wrong movie if you didn't expect it to be somewhat confusing to the newbie viewer, full of seemingly contradictory versions of reality, and ultimately solved by heroes that rely more on their innate abilities and their relationships to each other than on any amount of military hardware. Winning a war through pure shoot-em-up style mayhem has never been the plot of a FF game - it's like the difference between a "foreign" (non-US) movie with actual plot, characterization, and open endings, and the usual U.S. fare of "Legally Blonde", "Tomb Raider", and "Pearl Harbor". Maybe you should have just reviewed The Matrix or Tomb Raider again, Jon, and given this one a miss.
I can't comment on your other points, since I haven't seen the movie yet (maybe this weekend?), but it wouldn't surprise me that the voicing and the expressions aren't perfect. After all, this is the first time something like this has been tried. It's still a huge advance over the animation of the humans in Toy Story or even Shrek, though - maybe your negative comments are because the animation was close enough to looking real that the remaining slight failings were especially jarring?
Oh yeah and one more thing:
I can answer that - I'd destroy New York City in a heartbeat, and I'm not even a malevolent alien race :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Why did I expect Katz would toe the line with this review?
I thought the CG was simply awe-inspiring. Sure, it isn't perfect, but this was simply the most beautiful piece of work ever shown on the big screen.
The story was not amazing, but it isn't as bad as some people (read: Katz) make it out to be.
I hope we get to see more of this genre. Do yourself a favor, go see the movie and then form your own opinion.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
The plot was captivating, even to someone who only has the faintest recollection of the video games: for those who played the games a lot, it was superb. Much like the original production of Dune: if you knew the books, it was one of the best movies made. If you didn't, you were lost. Though in the case of FF, being lost wasn't anywheres as bad as with Dune.
But something that came to my mind while watching it was the format: full CG. It allowed the movie to have special effects that didn't break the mold of the movie. Let me try to explain myself here.
It's like the video game, Metal Gear Solid. MGS never breaks from the format that you play it in: it's a continuous flow of action and graphics that is extremely smooth. The makers didn't break the format to go into "Cinemagraphic Sequences". Everything was in the same mode as game play. This created a suspension of disbelief that never needed to be broken.
It's the same thing with Final Fantasy. Most movies, when special effects are added, LOOK like the effects are, well, ADDED. They are a second layer that is obviously ON TOP of the live action. Not so with FF! Because the ENTIRE movie is animated, the special effects don't have to break with the flow. The result is a movie where neat effects and the actors are lumped together into one unbreakable chain. The movie has a flow to it that you simply CANNOT imitate with live action.
The actors(:) were amazingly smooth (though the opening sequence wasn't as good as I had expected it to be), the effects non-intrusive, the voice-overs excellently done.
It of course does not rival live action (did you expect it to?), but in fifty years, when animation DOES 100% imitate life, people will look back at FF and say that THIS was the true beginning.
Firts, thanks to Katz for having an opinion that is actually his own and not born of the group mentality every now and then.
I liked the movie myself. Generally disliked the character animations. They reminded me of Blizzard's. Dummies that got a breath of light but didn't oil their joints. The characters were not fluid at all, Mainframe make the Transformers look more fluid than these characters.
But this movie would not have worked at all if it was doen with real actors. The visual effects would have make the real actors seem completely out of place. So even though the characters looked great but moved like the Tin Man, they fit in with the world they inhabited.
The story was so-so. Mad general with loyal following who wants nothing more than to blow stuff up out of revenge, scientests who just know that blowing stuff up will destroy the world.
The main flaw with the story is that they had potential for a deep story, but they took a shallow sweep of a deep lake and only got the very top, freshest, smelliest stuff.
What exactly are the spirits? Life energies? Souls? Some sort of collective? A gift from Gia? Why are there only eight of them? What could you have done with your almost romantic sub plot/comic relief characters if you didn't kill them? Just how mad is this general and why didn't you animate some of his backstory to give him more depth?
Overall, this movie would have been better as say, a one season mini-series. The animation was great, and was the correct choice for the story. I'd give it an average over all. It didn't totally suck, but it didn't live up to what it could have been.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.