I do not understand Hollywood. I fail to see the wisdom in trying to ruthlessly manipulate works in other mediums –mainly novels– to versions that can be easily filmed. Why can Hollywood not come up with its own ideas for movies? Modern film historians argue that this is the main characteristic of the ‘New Hollywood.’ After the fall of the monopolistic ‘Classic’ Hollywood studio system in 1947, movie studios of the ‘New Hollywood’ have been forced to search in quiet desperation for new ideas that can be packaged and sold easily as convenient ‘entertainment commodities,’ with the films themselves being just a small part of the industry. (Jurassic Park, with its immense web of merchandising, instantly identifiable brand logo, and its sequels and spin-offs, is a perfect example of this new phenomenon.) It is no surprise, then, to realize that it would only be a matter of time until Hollywood decided to appropriate videogames as a source for ideas. For all of their efforts, though, all Hollywood movies based on videogames – from the rotten Super Mario Bros. to the abominable Street Fighter– have so far failed in providing any results one would call luminary, both in aesthetic and financial terms –much to the chagrin of movie producers.

However, I was surprised when I read some reviewers stating that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was based on the games of the same name –and criticizing it because of this fact; I had previously thought that videogame software giant Squaresoft’s movie had nothing to do with their videogame series of the same name. Other reviewers could not decide if the movie was based on the game series or not; my local newspaper film critic gave up and described the movie as being "loosely based on the game series." I was slightly puzzled by this situation, so as a videogame player who had plenty of respect for Squaresoft. I felt it was my duty to clear this problem for myself. Unlikely as it sounded, perhaps the movie at some point showed the characters playing with their pet Chocobos or engaging in turn-based battles against enormous beasts in some spooky locations.

After watching the movie, though, it became clear that Final Fantasy the movie has little to do with Final Fantasy the video game series. In fact, the only things that these two have in common are their computer-generated visuals and a melodramatic storyline –nothing that is unique to the two particular works. I find it rather disappointing that Square only used the trademark ‘Final Fantasy’ name not only to try to capture the attention of the videogame playing audience and to enhance the visibility of the movie, but –in classical, cynical ‘New Hollywood’ fashion– also to sell the franchise as a commodity, tying in the movie with the games themselves. (Is it a coincidence that the movie is being sold through Sony studios, the same company that produces the ultra-successful PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game consoles on which the Final Fantasy game series currently resides?) By all accounts, the movie should really have been titled, "The Spirits Within."

Nevertheless, it is refreshing to find that the movie itself is on one level separated from this. The writer and director of the picture, Hironobu Sakaguchi, has always aimed for a cinematic quality in his Final Fantasy game series, of which he is the producer. Despite the increasing grumbling of some critics, this trait has been well received by the gaming community, particularly since the seventh installment on the PlayStation console, with its use of three-dimensional graphics and Full Motion Video. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Sakaguchi would one day try to expand into film itself, and The Spirits Within is the result of these dreams. The twist in this development is that the visuals of the movie are completely computer-generated. Final Fantasy is certainly not the first one to present itself in this way, but it is an innovation inasmuch as it is the first movie that features human characters in every role.

Like every other reviewer, though, first I have to commend the artists for the spectacular visuals. It is amazing to see how much care and detail has gone into almost every character and the breath-taking backdrops. I was particularly impressed by how well the hair of the main character, Aki Ross, was made –it has this "smoothness" in its movement that makes it seem so natural. Admittedly, there are a few technical issues to which I could not get accustomed. Seeing the movie, I realized that although graphics have come increasingly closer in achieving their ‘Holy Grail’ –photorealism– they are still far way from being able to replicate reality, or some other believable version of it. This detail is much more obvious with the characters rather than with their environments. Although they look and move in a manner resembling authenticity, they still look anything but genuine: some of the characters’ movements look forced and clumsy, and, like in a badly-dubbed Hong Kong film, sometimes their lip movements do not match the dialog. More importantly, even when the lip movements do match, the visuals still look artificial. The voice artists do a much better job with the dialog than the movie deserves, and fill their lines with an emotional force that their computer-generated "acting" counterparts cannot match. (This is especially the case with Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, and Ming Na.)

Nevertheless, much with videogames, I always expect there to be substance behind the shallow shell of visuals, no matter how good the latter are. So it is unfortunate that, in this matter, The Spirits Within fails. Admittedly, the movie is not really bad, but just painfully average, and the fault rests on the script. It is a shame that the team of writers, (Hironobu Sakaguchi, Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar, and Jack Fletcher) were not able to provide a script to match all the superb visuals and use them to their maximum potential. Toy Story, another landmark case in computer-animated films, showed just how powerfully inventive the medium of computer animation can be: its story –although corny and trite at times– was very imaginative, and greatly helped the movie’s vision. With The Spirits Within, though, we get the tried-and-true, hackneyed ‘save-the-world’ plot with a slight environmental theme that, as Edge magazine put it so well, "… proves to be more wooden and lifeless than the film’s synthespian protagonists." Disregarding the visuals, the movie is too predictable and pedestrian to provoke any interest.

The best example of this happens in a scene late in the movie, in which we find the two lovers alone in a room with a lovely view of the stars and the earth; a soft, slow piano solo can be heard in the background. It does not take much mental effort to predict what will happen next –and worse, how it will happen as well. The plot is so cliched and uninspired that you could watch the whole movie with the sound turned off and still be able to comprehend the plot competently. In fact, perhaps it would be even better to do so, because the dialog is remarkably poor at times. At the end of the movie, for example, when the hero and heroine are being attacked by the (admittedly impressive) monsters, the hero exclaims helpfully, "This is not a good place to be" –twice. The protagonists are not the only ones that suffer from this malady: Steve Buscemi’s sarcastic humorous nature is lost on too many tired and insipid jokes.

The characters are of no help in making the movie clever or thought provoking as well. Admittedly, it is foolish asking for this, as none of them has been fleshed out to make it seem that they possess a believable personality. Aki Ross is the only character that comes close to being three-dimensional, and all other characters are the basic cardboard character stereotypes found in other movies of this kind. Either through ineptitude or, more likely, just negligence, the characterization in The Spirits Within is so basic that the psychological nature of a character can be easily interpreted by their appearance. What you get, then, is the kind of movie in which the heroine wears white and the villain wears black.

Ultimately, The Spirits Within is a wonderful film to look at, but its horribly cliched and predictable substance is a strong detriment from enjoying it; the movie ends up being more eye candy rather than a full-fledged film. It is interesting to note that a semi-recent videogame by Square, The Bouncer, was severely criticized by many publications for the same reasons: pretty visuals with only worn-out substance inside it. Unlike the latter, though, audiences seemed –understandably– to react negatively to the movie, and Square suffered immense financial losses because of it. (Eventually, Square had to resort to begging Sony for financial help and Hisashi Suzuki, the C.E.O. of the company, resigned.) And yet I feel the movie is not a disappointment because it never promised anything else except its glorious visuals. In retrospect, it was expected that that with all of the emphasis put upon them, other areas of the movie –such as the script– would be neglected. Toy Story surprised people because it was more than just a technical demonstration of computer animation; the creators of the movie obviously wanted to make a well-done and enjoyable film in the process. They succeeded, and this is what makes the movie special. However, Toy Story is proving, unsurprisingly, to be the exception rather than the rule. The Spirits Within demonstrates this well: as a movie, it is in no way noteworthy, but as a technological achievement, it succeeds admirably.


Recommended:
No