I feel sorry for all the computer generated movies that come out over the next two years. The reviews are all going to start "This movie has very good computer animation, not as good as 2001's Final Fantasy, but very good nonetheless."

I could talk about the plot or the characters, but all anyone wants to know about first is how good does it look? Are the actors lifelike? Well, the answer is it looks great, and the actors can almost pass for human. A fellow critic, Roger Ebert, states in his review "The first closeup of her face and eyes is startling because the filmmakers are not afraid to give us a good, long look - they dare us not to admire their craft." He also says that she doesn't seem quite human, but does appear to be at least as human as a Playmate who has been airbrushed into perfection. I don't think I would go that far, but it is pretty close.

I truly believe that if I were to play a tape of this film on a television, I could fool someone who hadn't heard of the film into believing that the characters were real. The look is so close to real, and the motion capture technology has almost been perfected. All the actor's faces were completely realistic and showed the proper emotions perfectly at least 80% of the time, and that is an incredible amount to get right. After being impressed so much in the beginning, you will find it easy to relax and stop looking for any flaws.

There are just these little details that will only show up on the big screen that amazed me. All those people joked last year that the volleyball from "Cast Away" deserved a best performance nomination. I want to submit that this year Aki's hair gets the same consideration. The lead's hair moves slowly in the breeze, as she turns her head, and even has such a realistic texture that I wouldn't be surprised if it was composed of ten thousand individual strands in the computer. Most of the other actors have short military haircuts, removing the need to animate it.

Using computers the artists still have to struggle to make people seem real, but with an environment they easily create a world that doesn't, and maybe couldn't exist, but we accept as very impressive. The 'sets' of a ruined New York is an incredible thing just to look at. Surrounded by an alien-proof energy barrier, and the inside consisting of futuristic space tubes connecting ruined buildings together is striking to look at from every angle given to us.

Perhaps to enhance our belief that this is reality, and not computer generated, they did a lot of things like lens flares, shaky camera shots, and motion blur that is associated with 24 frames per second cameras. These are not necessary, since they never would have happened, yet they worked perfectly since it helped to enforce the illusion of live action. Most directors try to hide things like lens flares so we are not reminded that we are watching a movie, but this movie revels in the imitation of real life.

Watching computer animated people was never disconcerting, but listening to recognizable voices certainly is. The voice actors were all good, but recognizing their voices with such realistic looking people actually caused a problem. Steve Buscemi has such a distinct voice that it is instantly recognizable. He also has a very distinct face that immediately comes to mind. Putting his voice with what looked like a late twenties soldier that looks nothing like him was very agitating. This raises the question however, that what are they supposed to do, digitize Buscemi? Would it ever make sense to digitize his character in a movie that didn't require it to be filmed by a computer?

Ving Rhames, Donald Sutherland, Peri Gilpen, James Woods and Alec Baldwin were all also recognizable, but none looked like their real life counterparts. Ving and Sutherland did a little bit, but hearing Ros from Frasier speak through a young highly physical soldier never seemed to mesh for me.

Now even though this movie is based upon a series of video games, it does have an actual story that makes it feel like a real movie as opposed to a marketing tool to sell a future game. I've never played the game, but from reading other reviews, I guess that wouldn't have made a difference. The story definitely is more confusing than it should be.

The movie opens with a brief speech that doesn't begin to bring me up to speed with what I should know before the movie starts. I was confused by some of the monster's behavior, the scientist's mission, the soldiers, and well, almost everything else. I don't think I should have to see a movie a second time just to understand some key plot points, but I might for this one. I'm still not sure about the whole theory of the eight spirits, and how the eighth one sought her out at the end. Or how exactly it worked. Did anyone? Even the reviewers who are sure they understand it, each seem to have a different theory. And why did we see the same eagle (hawk?) that was flying over the Arizona desert also flying over the Caspian Mountains at the end of the film. That too was just confusing to me.

I'm very mixed about my feelings for the story. For all the confusion I felt, I still feel that it is very impressive in that this is far more than just a sci-fi action picture. There is a philosophy about the earth having a life force, and that we all share it as well. There are some strong emotional scenes with the deaths of countless characters that aren't normally associated with an animated film before.

For all the confusion about the story, however, I was almost never bored while watching this film. There are some amazing action scenes throughout the film. There is an escape by a military automobile that is amazingly tense. Seeing a creature slowly work it's way through a room containing the shield generator is terrifying. Since the creatures aren't stopped by anything physical in our world (except special shields), we see what happens when a ship tries to fly through one with devastating results. I was even impressed by an Alamo-type of stand by some of the Marines so that others could escape. And when the action slowed down, it was still beautiful to look at.

This is certain to be a ground breaking film that will still be talked about several years from now. I'm sure that even those people who don't think they liked it will rush to buy the DVD when it is released at Christmas time, hoping to recapture the awe they felt watching it on the big screen.




Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8