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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within reviews
49
7.1 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 69 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Sci-fi

Written by: Al Reinert
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Jeff Vintar

Directed by: Hironobu Sakaguchi

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 11, 2001
DVD: October 23, 2001

Running Time: 106 minutes, Color

Origin: Japan / USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

Starring Ming-na, Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Donald Sutherland, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, and Peri Gilpin

Set on Earth in the year 2065, an invasion threatens to extinguish the remains of mankind and quite possibly every living creature on the planet. The fate of all life on Earth relies on one woman's determination. But time is running out. (Columbia Tristar)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson

Spectacular entertainment.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The story is nuts-and-bolts space opera, without the intelligence and daring of, say, Steven Spielberg's ''A.I.'' But the look of the film is revolutionary. Final Fantasy is a technical milestone, like the first talkies or 3-D movies.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

May not tell a great story, but it's a great wow.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Unlike anything you've ever seen before, Final Fantasy is, finally, one for the history books, and tremendous fun to boot. It makes Lara Croft look like an old maid.

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75

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's a blast!

75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Is Final Fantasy decent sci-fi? Yes, more than decent.

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75

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Despite its conceptual shortfall, is worth seeing, if only to update yourself on what can emerge from a keyboard these days.

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63

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

You watch with amazement their physical movements, how closely their lips match their overly precise, prerecorded dialogue, yet they're not human enough to get us past the stunt factor and lost in the drama.

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63

USA Today Mike Clark

Moviegoers accustomed to Hollywood action probably won't find this contemplative adventure so appealing.

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63

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

Tends to be lugubrious.

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60

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

The result is a feast for the eyes but frequently a famine for the frontal lobes, a movie of towering imagination and middling rewards.

60

Variety Todd McCarthy

As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

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60

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

But the film exerts a hold. The crux is: for how long?

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50

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This sort of cinema is as dehumanizing as the aliens who serve as its intergalactic bad guys.

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50

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

The techies still can't manage to make two characters look convincingly into each other's eyes -- it's like watching Disney World animatronic figures do soap opera.

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50

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Isn't likely to satisfy the gamers' appetite for action. It also probably isn't heady enough for the science-fiction crowd, and it's too remote for those who simply wish to be immersed in a head-spinning fantasy world.

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50

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

The film's plot gets so convoluted no nongamer older than 14 will be able to follow it all.

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50

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

What makes Final Fantasy a final failure is a predictable, nonsensical plot, laughably lame dialogue and a surfeit of cloying environmentalist piety.

50

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

For all the grace of the animation and visual splendor, the stilted script and emotionless "performances" give this digital artifact a distinctly stiff, wooden flavor.

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42

Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson

Final Fantasy doesn't pop.

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40

TV Guide Ken Fox

The movie exists only as a showcase for the animation technology known as hyperReal, a photo-realistic simulation of space, figure and movement that hopes to one day erase the line between animation and live action once and for all.

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40

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

An offshoot of a popular computer game, is really all about inducing visual awe. And for the first few minutes, it does.

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30

Wall Street Journal Ed Epstein

Although packaged as a movie, is in reality a clever 106-minute promo for Sony's PlayStation II games.

30

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

A soulless affair.

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30

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The lip movements of the animated figures are slightly slow, so you feel as if you're watching a badly dubbed Japanese creature feature from the 1960's. The dialogue is almost as stilted, and after a while you drift into that half-dream state that inert movies can create.

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30

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one.

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20

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

As monotonous as Muzak, and when it comes to the plot, both bewildering and trite.

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20

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

I never forgot for a minute that I was watching a cartoon, all the way down to the silly, pseudo-spiritual ending, an ending whose very incomprehensibility is actually one of the more endearing hallmarks of anime.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 69 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Matthew G gave it a10:
Should of done very well, and could of change how we did film if it had done well. Very easy my favorites

Thomas N gave it a7:
This movie has a visual appeal, rarely seen in movies and a voice acting, i have never seen achieved in 3d animation before, the characters were more alive than i have ever seen before. true, the story was kinda weird but then again, i have seen worse story in many other movies. Definitely worth a watch.

David T gave it a9:
When this movie came out there were a lot of people I knew that felt that because it was SquareSoft making it, it should have have a deep plot. Those that came in expecting a fairy tail were disappointed, but the only way for them to get such depth is with a series of films. I believe for a single film it had a believable environment, likable characters, goals that are usually traditional in SQ games, and a good antagonist. I personally feel they did a good job seeing as they are a game company.

Sophie B gave it a6:
This movie is definitely not as bad as I previously had heard. Amazing, stunning state-of-the art animation and a definitely enjoyable film, but there are too many character and plot cliches and some of the voice acting is subpar. A decent film, and one I'd recommend to watch just to see how REALLY good the graphics are, but not groundbreaking in plot or character development.

Riren gave it a6:
You can't knock its beautiful computer graphics. Shrek, Incredibles and Monster House have nothing on this movie's realistic designs and textures. Unfortunately all that computer power went into a generic science fiction plot. Fans of the videogame series will be disappointed to see this film has very little in common with any plot from the games, nor does its world fit with the Final Fantasy cosmos. The voice acting is fine, if hammy, though there isn't much in the script for them to work off of.

A Movie Critic gave it a7:
It was a pretty entertaining, definitely very cool looking sci-fi futuristic adventure that's fun, and always interesting...yet forgettable the moment you turn the movie off. The characters just don't leave much of an impact and the plot was actually not nearly as impressive as the plot featured in most FF games. That said, it's a pretty good movie that's DEFINITELY not great...but pretty good. I liked Dr. Sid, and the little homage to FF7 at the end was pretty cool, but ...I don't know. Not worth a purchase but maybe at least a rental.

[Anonymous] gave it a7:
Not much of a story or characters, but that CGI looks so stunning, the visuals alone are worth the price of admission. In spite of the weird premise, I could not take my eyes off the screen. Same way Appleseed found itself in my favor.

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