Final Fantasy the movie? When I first heard that Final Fantasy was going to be made into a movie a lot of questions ran through my mind. How were the battles going to be done? How will Square (Squaresoft, is the company behind all of the FF games, and this movie) be able to condense a 30+ hour game into only a 2-hour movie? I was primarily interested in how they would make it work. So opening day finally came, and I was interested to see how the reviews would come out. I got very mixed reviews everywhere I looked. Some people absolutely loved it, and some couldn’t stand it. So that really didn’t help me out much. Then I decided one day to go to a matinee showing of the movie. I sort of wanted to see the movie plus for only $4 how could I go wrong? Besides from the previews the animation looked incredible. So my friend and I got our tickets and walked into the almost completely desolate theater, sat back and watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Plot…What plot? I didn’t see a plot, did you?

Every movie needs a plot. Even if the plot is very thin, a movie still must have a plot. If you have played any of the Final Fantasy video games you know that the plot centrally revolves around saving the world. Square makes it work in the video games, because they have major differences in each storyline. Guess what the plot in the movie is? Yes that’s right, we are saving the world again! It actually had potential to work, but Square put no effort into the plot of this movie at all.

The lead female character, Aki, looks like she is in her mid 20s, which is fine, but what happened before she was apart of this mission? We never find out anything about any of the characters past. Anyway, the movie starts out with one of many pointless dreams that Aki has during the movie. After the dream, the scene cuts to her running around in a very vacant looking New York City looking for the “6th spirit.” Apparently she must find these spirits for her survival and the survival of the world. Which brings up one of many unanswered questions. Where is the rest of the world? They show New York City completely trashed and not a single civilian living. In fact, there is never a shot of any civilian living. So what does this mean, the only people living in the entire world are the 9 or 10 characters in the movie? I don’t know, but that is my interpretation.

Without giving too much of the movie away (there really isn’t much to give away) you and your team, must find the final 2 spirits to have any chance for survival.

One thing that really bothered me in the movie was that the phantoms (the enemy) kill a lot of people in the movie. All right that is fine, people are dying, but all throughout the movie Aki is saying, “These phantoms aren’t dangerous, they are just misunderstood.” Yeah right they are harmless, and they attack anything in site? That really doesn’t make any sense at all. So what she is saying is that the phantoms are lost, frightened, and scared and we should not have any hatred towards them even though these phantoms are killing of main characters like crazy! This really makes no sense whatsoever and the worst part is when the movie ends you are left with all of these questions still unanswered.

Fine the plot is bad, but we don’t need a good plot this is Final Fantasy! At least the characters are incredible, right?

Unfortunately, Final Fantasy provides us with some of the most underdeveloped characters that I have ever seen. (Yes even worse then Fast and the Furious) In the beginning of the movie Aki is saved by a team of soldiers. The led male character in the movie named Gray is the captain of these soldiers. Aki and Gray seem to have a past with each other by the way they talk to each other, but the past is never revealed. Actually almost nothing about any of the characters is ever revealed. You feel almost no emotion for any of the characters because you cannot grow to love or hate them, since you don’t know anything about them. A major asset to any movie is character development, and Final Fantasy having some of the best-developed characters in each of their video games is a major disappointment when it comes to this movie.

Well at least the animation is good

This is true, the animation really is incredible. With the Final Fantasy movie you will get a taste of what the new age of animation is all about. Yes Toy Story was an incredibly animated movie, but you will see the difference when you see Final Fantasy. Every frame of the movie runs very smooth. The screen is very crisp and clear, and the detail is unbelievable. When one of the characters sets down a cup of coffee, if you carefully observe you will see the incredible detail that was put into the movement of the coffee in the cup. Each character is textured impeccably, and during some points in the movie you might actually forget you are watching an animated movie.

I must give Squaresoft credit where credit is due, and the animation really is everything that it is cracked up to be. If you are going to see this movie for the animation alone then you really won’t have a problem. If you are going to this movie looking for great characters, a great story, and an overall excellent movie, you should go see something else.

The animation is incredible, I bet the voice acting is too.

The best word to describe the sound of the movie is detailed. Very detailed. The explosions and sound effects are done very well. In fact, you will hear everything from steps being walked up, to the squeak sound that Aki’s suit makes when she walks. Well all of that is fine and dandy, but what about the voice acting? Well it is true that during this day and age the technology is incredible, so I have no idea why the people at Square couldn’t make the characters mouth movements match there voice. That upon many other things was very distracting, and the worst part is that it lasts throughout the entire movie. When a character speaks you will see there mouth move one way and what they are saying does not match up to the movement that there mouth made. It is almost like a bad Japanese dubbed movie. That might be somewhat of an exaggeration, but not by much.

Final Fantasy Overall

The only advice I can give Squaresoft is to stick with making games. They should end their movie making days right now, with only one bad movie under their belt. The only positive thing that I really can say is that the animation was excellent. Everything else is horrendous, and this movie should be avoided at all costs. Final Fantasy proves to have a horrible plot, storyline, characters, voice acting, and many things that you will notice if you go see the movie. Please do not see this movie, even if you are a Final Fantasy fan. This movie has almost nothing to do with the games, and unfortunately my original question “How will square make it work” was answered. They won’t make it work. The concept of a Final Fantasy movie is a great idea, but next time lets put some work into the important things, not just the animation.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older