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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within reviews


7.1

based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 63 votes
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Rate this movie

GAMES:

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Sci-fi
WRITTEN BY:	Al Reinert Hironobu Sakaguchi Jeff Vintar
DIRECTED BY:	Hironobu Sakaguchi
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 23, 2001 Video: October 23, 2001 Theatrical: July 11, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	106 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Japan / USA

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...

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

Spectacular entertainment.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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

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.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's a blast!

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

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

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.

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.

USA Today Mike Clark

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

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

Tends to be lugubrious.

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."

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

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

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

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

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.

Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson

Final Fantasy doesn't pop.

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.

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.

Wall Street Journal Ed Epstein

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

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

A soulless affair.

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.

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

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

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 63 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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.

Joanna D. gave it a10:
This movie was unpredictable in that it was not very "Final Fantasy" and it did not have the feel that the video games have. Extremely contrare to Advent Children, but just as awesome in its own way.

FFGod gave it a1:
I feel I have to give credit where it is due. The smartest person on this board so far seems to be Mike M. Absolutely correct. Stunning graphics and... everthing else was S..T. Some moron said this was mentaly numbing. This only thing mentaly numbing is the stupidity of the thing!!!!!

Sam gave it an8:
Sad, beautiful, and KICK-ASS. I thought the action was great, but the high point is its beauty, but play the games, they're superior in every way (then again, like Tidus said, it's more like the amazing Xenosaga).

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment