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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 69 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
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)
Also On Metacritic
GAMES: Playstation Final Fantasy Chronicles Playstation Final Fantasy IX
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
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.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
May not tell a great story, but it's a great wow.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
It's a blast!
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Is Final Fantasy decent sci-fi? Yes, more than decent.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Moviegoers accustomed to Hollywood action probably won't find this contemplative adventure so appealing.
Read Full Review >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.
Variety Todd McCarthy
As computer game-derived features go, it sure beats "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
But the film exerts a hold. The crux is: for how long?
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This sort of cinema is as dehumanizing as the aliens who serve as its intergalactic bad guys.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
The film's plot gets so convoluted no nongamer older than 14 will be able to follow it all.
Read Full Review >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.
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Ed Epstein
Although packaged as a movie, is in reality a clever 106-minute promo for Sony's PlayStation II games.
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
As monotonous as Muzak, and when it comes to the plot, both bewildering and trite.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
