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Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (Special Edition)

Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within (Special Edition)

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $26.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good but not final fantasy
Review: This movie is based on my favorite video game series; final fantasy. But the final fantasy game series is FANTASY! The movie is SCI-FI! They use guns in the movies and swords and spears in the game series. this movie should not be called "final fantasy the spirits within", it should just be called "the spirits within" to me this is a very good movie but IT WASN'T FINAL FANTASY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Simply amazing!
Review: It's science fiction! If your not into escapism, don't watch it. Why else do we watch movies? That being said, I was simply amazed at how life-like the animation is. I didn't even know about this video until a year after it came out. I saw it playing in a store. I just had to have it and see more. If you like science fiction, if you like seeing innovative ideas being tested, if you are into high-quality video in adventure games, you must get this DVD. I have never seen one of the Final Fantasy games, but seeing the movie makes me interested enough to check out the games.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Beautiful CG, but that's about it.
Review: The CG was great, the detail amazing, both in the visuals and the sounds. But, the story was boring and didn't hold my attention. The dialog was also horrible at times. Personally, I find playing the games more engaging than watching this movie, the games offer much better plots.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Beautiful Animation, Terrible Storyline
Review: I can only say that the animation is the one, redeeming quality this film provides. The story, based loosely on the video game franchise of the same title, is a muddled mix of space exploration, religious non-sense, and new-age spiritualism. The characters are interesting, although difficult to relate to, and I feel that it is only because the animation was so lush, and almost convincingly real, that this movie wasn't a total flop.

For the first time in cinema, human beings are recreated through the use of CG animation, and done to a point where it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between animation and reality. I found myself, at times, accepting that what I saw was real. The attention to detail was unbelievable-hair, eyes, clothing, skin-its unbelievable.

Its worth the time from the standpoint of seeing where the industry is at with animation, but if you are looking for a good, gripping story, look elsewhere....because you won't find it in "The Spirits Within".

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Stunning visuals, but a weak, cliched story.
Review: FF, The Spirits Within, is an impressive demonstration of what can be accomplished today with computer animation. I found myself completely immersed in the movie's gorgeous action scenes. At times, completely forgetting I was watching computer animation. The highlights for me were the opening in New York, and the getaway later on in the futuristic humvee.

Unfortunately, the movie is also a demonstration of how great visuals can't make up for a really weak, unoriginal, predictable, poorly written screenplay. The cliches just didn't stop:

Beautiful heroine, unexpectedly reunited with past love interest during the middle of a crisis. Wow! That's never been done before.

"Race against the clock" (With a countdown timer! You've gotta have a countdown timer!) by heroine to save hero from death.

"Good", white uniformed government research team vs. "bad", black uniformed military team. Yeah, it's pretty heavy on the symbolism there.

Government research team and military team arguing their positions in front of an "esteemed council".

The heroine recounting the death of a young child, all while sappy piano music plays in the background.

"Bad" military general who intentionally allows the enemy to penetrate defenses, loses control of the situation, and utters the cheesy line, "What have I done?"

Requisite love scene between hero and heroine, just minutes after each has witnessed the horrifying death of several close friends. I know that would put me in the mood.

In the end, what could have been an impressive sci-fi movie is just reduced to a long demonstration of what the very talented people at SquareSoft are capable of. Maybe next time they'll spend less time worrying about making the CGI countdown timer look realistic, and more time questioning the existence of the countdown timer in the first place.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: CGI with a real story
Review: OK, first things first. I'm not a game player, I don't own a playstation, X-Box, Nintendo etc., and I have never so much as had a sniff off the Final Fantasy games. I bought this DVD simply because I fancied watching the film. Before this, I was an FF virgin.

With that said, I can go on and say that this film blew my mind. On the first viewing it was the CGI that did it for me. I have some experience in this area, and was amazed at the realism acheived, particularly with Dr Sid, who at times, is so realistic it's almost creepy.

Since I was so distracted by the technical accomplishments of the film the first time, I was forced to watch it a second time, during which I was able to fully appreciate the story itself. It's got everything you could want; Action, mystery, romance, and a real sense of philosophy.

The film doesn't, like so many games conversions, insult the intelligence either. You are led through the story in a competent and compelling manner, and eventually, everything that seemed so confusing at the start is explained, and the plot slots neatly together in time for the final showdown.

This is certainly a film I'll come back to often.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: whoa
Review: I was highly mortified by the extremely horrifying display on my television set. If only i could go back in time and tell the 2 hour ago me not to watch this terrible excuse for a movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A groundbraking milestone in CGI.
Review: Wow! The film was beautifully executed, both in terms of story and visuals. I have NEVER seen such hauntingly realistic CGI in my life (especially an entire movie composed solely of it). I am a freelance digital animator/visual effects artist, and as I have read some reviews, NOBODY can fully appreciate this film's mathematical precision on screen unless they have done this type of work themselves. Hair follicle and procedural texture simulations, along with precise lighting and specularity, had me fooled many times that DR. Sid, and others, were real actors. Probably the one scene which caused chills to run down my spine (which is EXTREMELY rare for any CGI artist because he knows the truth behind the visuals and is usually never fooled) was the scene right when Aki and the Captain look into each others eyes after hugging each other (in zero-g in Aki's spaceship). I was speechless.

I did, however, pickup on some slight CGI "inaccuracies." Some lipsynching was different than the dubbed dialogue (excusable, mind you that over 1,000,000 facial expression can be made by the face, and creating all of the morph targets for thoses expressions would reach the "infinite" realm). Some walking cycles for Aki were a bit mechanical, but I really don't care. Aki's walking isn't meant to grab one's attention. Hence, it's not very critical.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Tedious
Review: Let's face it, if your a fan you will give any review of your favourite show/film 4 or 5 stars, no matter how bad, thats the main problem with most Amazon reviews. I really wanted to like Final Fantasy but the fact of the matter is that its great, no make that beautiful, to look at, but sheer torture to sit through. This film is the English Patient (*) of Anime movies. By its end of you wont care a bit if these moody, brooding, sighing characters live or die and (maybe) even cheer when they do. Its the script that killed it not the animation.
Anyway, 3 stars for the animation, no stars for the script. And yes I did understand it, that still didnt make it interesting...

(*) I loved the English Patient first time round but found it like FF later when showing it to friends, it **is** like they portrayed on Seinfeld, guess you gotta be in the right mood.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great story and animation
Review: This one was a sleeper at the boxoffice, but then again what animated movies except the Disney stuff isn't? Credit is never given to movies like this with it's outstanding animation, and super cool storyline. On two levels I can recommend this movie, if you LOVE animation, and if you love SF. I got to see this one in the theater, and if you have a home theater you will see what I mean when I say "this should be seen on the big screen." Buy this one, it's great!


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