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The Final Fantasy video games have sold more than 33 million units
worldwide. It's a natural in the entertainment industry scheme of things to exploit such a
successful franchise by spinning off a movie, T-shirts, "action figures," maybe
even a TV version. There's a guaranteed audience of fans out there.
On the plus side, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within uses state
of the art computer animation techniques to create human characters with an unusually
realistic appearance; the marketing gurus have named these "hyperReal"
characters. More about that in a moment.
The film is also undeniably visually handsome. Placed in a
post-apocalyptic year 2065, its scenes of Old New York City as a wasteland and a new New
York City enclosed within what looks like a glittering Victorian greenhouse show the
influence of sci fi predecessors like Blade Runner (the great pioneer of the sci fi
universe-as-a-slum look, as contrasted with the sleek idealized settings of earlier
efforts like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon). Star Wars imagery has also been incorporated--air
ships zooming between canyon walls, massive marching armies of robot-like creatures.
Finally, the alien invaders portrayed here are imaginative and
intriguing to see; they have no corporeal presence, but are apparitions--glowing
evanescent waves of spirit energy that take a wide variety of forms: dragons, octopi,
insects, worms. And when they occupy a city, they sing like whales.
Now hang on. The heroine, Doctor Aki Ross, and her scientist mentor are
seeking the spirit elements, which, when combined, will match the strength and intensity
of the aliens and neutralize their destructive power. They espouse a spiritual approach,
with talk of Gaia and the oneness of all things. Meanwhile, the military is acting
characteristically militaristic and wants to throw everything they've got at the spirits,
regardless of warnings that such a course of action will only aggravate the situation.
Throw in a handsome Captain for a love interest for Aki, and a few squad members--a Black
for political correctness, a wiseguy for comic relief.
What it all adds up to is formulaic storytelling with a thin overlay of
genuinely hokey "spiritualism." There is no character development at all; the
filmmakers apparently have assumed that the advance in realistic animation techniques will
create character, when all it really creates are images. As it turns out,
hyperReal is only halfReal. The stellar cast of voices includes Alec Baldwin, James
Woods, and Donald Sutherland, but there's little they can do to inject life into the
stiff, uninspired dialogue. (And is that the great British film star, Jean Simmons,
voicing a small role? She's been left out of the otherwise terrific official website.)
So for all the technical accomplishments and visual splendor, director
Hironobu Sakaguchi has come up with a run of the mill cartoon that may scare little kids
and will send adults scurrying to the exits. As for the gamers, surely it is the
interactive nature of the computer games that holds their interest and engages their
minds. Sitting in a dark theater with no buttons to push, no joysticks to manipulate, no
decisions to make, they will likely be disappointed as well. But if 33 million of them and
their friends buy tickets, Columbia Pictures will laugh all the way to their very
unspiritual bank.
