Ok, so I finally get to see "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" last night. I actually didn't see too much hype
around this movie, but I knew about it from the web mostly, and because all my friends are always talking about it.
Suprisingly I only saw a preview about it once. Commercially I didn't see it hardly ever. I had very high expectations
for it, since it was made by Square, and they know how to do things well. I was expecing amazing CG (duh!), a very good
story, amazing character development, and a decent plot.
As I was watching the movie, actually fell asleep twice, but only for a few seconds.
This is not entirely the movies fault, as I had had a very
rough day, and didn't go to bed the night before until 3am. I think I wouldn't have fallen asleep if the movie didn't
quite as slow as it did.
After watching the movie, I have to say I was a bit dissapointed, and a bit suprised. First of all, the story itself
was very original, interesting, and entertaining. It was perhaps the best hybrid sci-fi/fantasy story I've ever seen. I
won't give anything away. The story and plot are very interesting, and carry the movie well.
The CG is easily the best I've ever seen, and that was obviously expected. After watching the first 10 minutes of the
movie I almost forgot it was CG. There were a few flaws though. The first was the synch between the lips and the voice.
It was very good, but not excellent. It sometimes looked as though their mouths were undermoving for the most part, and
they're lips seemed stretched. The next problem was the "delicacy factor". The characters seemed to not want to touch
anything, or they did it so gently. Their hands would move carefully and slowly, as if they didn't want to stir the
air, or mess up their makeup. This was seen when Aki woke from her dreams, and put her hand to her face. It appeared that
she didn't want to fuck up her face or something.
The next thing was the action. All in all the movie seemed a bit slow, and just the same were the action scenes. I'd
think fighting invisible-walking-through-wall-soul-destroying monsters would be quite a harrowing experience. These
characters seemed like it was a hobbie for them, just another day at the beach, no emotion, no fear. The action seemed
too slow.
"Oh geeze harry, the terrible monsters are approaching us. Perhaps we should run."
"Yes, a good deduction, lets jog instead, I've had 1 too many loafs of bread today."
"OK, good call. Lets be on our way."
If it were me, I'd be shitting my pants, and getting the hell out of there in a hail of bullets.
The last thing was the questionable relativity to other films/games/anime. The most notable being the similarity of the
"big invisible blobby monsters" and the "mother nature blobby mostster" from the anime film "Mononoke Hime". This is a
similarity in both looks and behavior, and general idea. The main control room for the Zeus cannon also looked like
Central Dogma from "Neon Genisis Evangelion". Its basically a pit, surrounded by control towers, where the computer display
is centered in the pit, and is holographic.
The ending was a bit strange, because the movie seemed to be building up to some big ending, but it just kinda ended the
way I thought it would. You'll see what I mean.
All in all, it was entertaining, and thats what movies are for. It is very good on the big screen, and would reccomend
seeing it. It just wasn't all that I had hoped for. I give it an 9/10