Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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.