The last decade has taught us that, as a general rule of thumb, making films based on video game franchises is a bit like making cookies out of untreated dioxin- bad for business, bad for the community, and a bad idea in general.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within narrowly avoids joining the ranks of leper films like
Double Dragon and
Super Mario Brothers, by virtue of the fact that the only things it takes from the video game series are its title and general theme.
This film is the first wide-release digital animation showcase from Square Co. Ltd., the venerated virtual crack dealers whose Final Fantasy series (as well as its high-quality cousins like the Chrono and Mana series) of console games has inspired gamer insomnia for more than a decade. In recent years, the FF series has become noted for its use of superbly done CGI interludes. This film, years in the making, is the penultimate result of Square's experimentation- a film fully rendered in computer animation using the Final Fantasy series' style and signature theme of techno-spiritual conflict. Although the idea of an entirely digital film is nothing new, this film's claim to fame is the extraordinary realism of its rendered human characters as well as its adult tone.
Not a Chocobo in Sight!
It is the year 2065. Earth has been invaded and laid waste by "bio-etheric" creatures called "Phantoms." The human race survives in high-tech enclaves, guarded by energy fields the Phantoms cannot penetrate. Dr. Aki Ross (voice of Ming-Na) and her mentor Dr. Sid (voice of Donald Sutherland) are searching for the "eight spirits of the earth," eight unique creatures whose spiritual energy patterns will combine to form a "wave" that will destroy the Phantoms. The good doctors are caught in a race against time, since the militant General Hein (voice of James Woods, which is your first clue that he's a bad, bad man) wants to put an end to the hunt for the spirits and excise the Phantoms from the planet with a gigantic spaceborne laser. The only problem with Hein's scheme is that the laser might penetrate deep enough into the planet's core to harm the so-called Gaia force, from which all life springs. Of course, Hein puts a sneaky plan in motion and Dr. Ross has to go renegade to finish gathering the needed spirits. Joining her for the ride are the "Deep Eyes" (yep, "Deep Eyes") a squad of elite soldiers casually betrayed by Hein's plotting. The squad is voiced by Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, and Peri Gilpen. Of course, their leader, Grey Edwards (voice of Alec Baldwin) is Dr. Ross's former lover. All the items on the sci-fi action flick checklist are eventually met as the plot unfolds; there's shootin' and runnin' and kissin' and four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, as well as stupid politicians, heroic sacrifices, and aliens in the ventilation system.
What Works...
There's no denying that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a seven-course meal for the eyes. This film has been touted for almost two years as the next big thing in digital animation, and, happily, it frequently manages to live up to its hype. Even when it doesn't, it's still a hell of a thing.
The human characters themselves are the centerpiece of the film. Although the phrase "photo-realistic" has been much bandied about in discussion of this film, it just ain't the case. This is not to say that the amount of detail rendered into hair, clothing, skin texture, eyes, and movement isn't impressive, because at its best it's astounding. Dr. Aki Ross appears to have the most detailed and fluid movements, while Dr. Sid seems to have the most intricate and believable surface detail, down to wrinkles and liver spots. The character details will seem familiar to anyone who has seen Square's console game sequences (like the now-legendary ballroom dance in Final Fantasy VIII), but they are bigger, bolder, smoother, and somehow more personalized than what has gone before. This film isn't simply a blown-up video game. It's at home on the big screen, and it pulls its own visual weight.
Faring even better than the humans in the film is the technology that fills their world. Spacecraft, firearms, and ground transports are rendered in detail bordering on the fetishistic. Dr. Ross and the nameless technicians visible in many scenes manipulate their computers with a delightfully novel interface, best described as touch sensitive holograms projected a few inches above the control surfaces. The energy-shielded human cities are also gorgeous, glowing like amber gemstones with thousands of shimmering facets.
The Phantoms run the gamut from the merely strange to the downright eerie (the gigantic, football field sized wasteland striders are possibly the most frightening). These creatures are, in the main, beautifully animated with a slick, ghostly translucence that belies the deadly rapidity of their movements. Phantoms basically drink human souls, and even a brief flicker of contact with one can be lethal. The visual metaphor for this, wherein a ghostly blue aura is torn out of a human body and subsumed into the glowing "plasma" of a Phantom's substance, is the creepiest thing in the film.
What Doesn't...
As mentioned, the human models aren't perfect, and they're at their least effective when speaking in close and medium shots. A number of small details are awry- cheek movement is unnatural, throat movement is barely expressed, and lip synching is sometimes off. All of this serves to give the human models a somewhat puppet-like feel at times, reminding the audience that for all their pixellated glory, the characters are essentially Gerry Anderson marionettes on steroids.
Even more eyebrow-raising is the fact that Grey Edwards, the leading male, is so damn near a lookalike for Ben Affleck that it's distracting. I'm hardly the first one to comment on this, and while I don't think the likeness is quite lawsuit material, it makes me ponder the wisdom of modeling him thus in the first place. Some have commented that Dr. Ross resembles Bridget Fonda, and while there is a loose resemblance, it's just not as obvious.
Your ability to stand the script and the plot will depend on your tolerance for the film's peculiar brand of spirituality, making liberal use as it does of the Gaia hypothesis, spiritual energy, and all sorts of pretty blue and green lights representing what is good and wholesome (that which is alien and aggressive is, of course, candy-apple red). Fans of the video game series will find themselves in familiar waters, but all of the business about spirits and energy waves is blasted past the audience so swiftly and matter-of-factly that it made my writer's gland itch.
The meek, timid, flighty, under-explained story is The Spirits Within'sbiggest liability. Make no mistake, this film makes love to your optic nerve, but beyond that it has absolutely nothing extraordinary to recommend it. Ten years from now, this film will be a dusty artifact of technology in transition, an international The Last Starfighter with a sweet exterior and a hollow core. The lack of a strong story and a memorable script is perhaps a benign neglect in a film so predicated on the visual experience. Nonetheless, it strikes me as wasteful... why gather such recognizable vocal talent, spin such awe-inspiring visuals, and pair it with such a flimsy, shallow story? It denigrates the superlative work performed on the animation, and denies the film any real chance for posterity. Are we doomed to suffer this sort of thing indefinitely, forever draping better and better frames on flimsier and flimsier skeletons?
I don't really care to debate whether or not a strong story is the point of summer fluff sci-fantasy like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. What's undeniable is that a good, strong script could only have enhanced the experience, giving it substance to match its style. Now thatwould have been art.
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