Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within

Based on the interactive role-playing game franchise now into its ninth title, Final Fantasy the movie – in keeping with its PlayStation counterpart – is nothing if not committed to high production values, pushing back the boundaries of CGI technology with its thoroughly impressive-looking virtual cast.

It’s the year 2065, and the Earth is under siege. A meteor has crashed into our planet, unleashing millions of strange and ghostly aliens who now roam the Earth, literally sucking the life out of everything they come in contact with. The few survivors of this catastrophe have retreated into barrier cities built to withstand the phantoms. Among them is Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na) who herself has become infected by an alien spirit, but who – together with her mentor Dr. Sid (Sutherland) seeks to collect eight spirits which they believe will save the planet, while also analysing Aki’s nightly dreams for clues to the alien’s true nature.

In their mission, they’re aided by the square-jawed and courageous Captain Grau Edwards (Baldwin) and his motley crew of military stereotypes (Buscemi et al). However, not only does Dr. Ross have to battle against the aliens within, but her entire quest may be jeopardised by the bitter and militant Genral Hein (Woods), who – in true US military spirit! – is planning to unleash a massive space weapon that would destroy the earth in order to ‘save’ it.

Unquestionably, Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within is a seminal film with respect to CGI technology. While other videogame-to-big-screen transfers (case in point: the recent Tombraider) have tended to suffer through not offering anything that regular game-players won’t have seen already, Final Fantasy avoids this pitfall effortlessly, given that each of the nine FF instalments are different, and given the groundbreaking use of technology on offer.

Unfortunately, the film-makers seem to have left it to the computers to write the script as well. Every hackneyed cliché in the book – from ‘Stop busting my chops’ to the black crew member (Rhames) pleading ‘Go on without me!’ – has made it to the final cut, all the greater a waste when one considers the impeccably-cast voice talents involved. Meanwhile, the plot is pure sci-fi hokum, a marriage of futurism and woolly new-age psychology.

Such hokum, of course, comes with an appreciable built-in audience, and while most people will undoubtedly find Final Fantasy worthwhile only as an intermittently entertaining high-tech Manga movie, there’s no doubt at all that it would be truly fucking supreme if only we were all still twelve.