with a team of 200 graphic artists and animators working on this first film production from game developer squaresoft’s square pictures , final fantasy , inspired by the top-selling game franchise , is visually awe-inspiring and groundbreaking .
no doubt , you have never seen anything like this film , and the hyperbolic fanfare surrounding its release is absolutely deserved .
but why does such a tremendous feat of eye candy have to be weighted down with a problematic story , wooden dialogue and generally uncharismatic voice acting ?
obviously , the primary goal of the film is to stun and amaze audiences with extremely sophisticated cgi .
everything you see in the film is rendered in great detail : individual threads in the fabric , individual strands of hair swaying , wrinkles and pimples on skin , incredible water effects .
overall , the expressions and lip movements fairly accurately match the emotions and dialogue ; and the times when they don’t sync perfectly really stand out , since the animation is usually so dazzling .
but you won’t spend much time dwelling on those gaffes — as soon as you catch one , the next stellar monster or effect will have you muttering , ” wow . . . ”
like the series of games , final fantasy’s plot and characters have little to do with its predecessors , outside of being born from the same japanese mastermind , hironobu sakaguchi .
it’s the year 2065 , and humans are prisoners in caged cities of their own making that guard them from an outside world now overrun with deadly alien ” phantoms . ”
whenever a human comes in contact with the ghostly visitors , the often-invisible beings pass through the body and wrench out its soul ( for some unexplainable reason ) .
while many humans agree with a plan by monomaniacal general hein ( james woods ) to blast the aliens with a ” zeus cannon , ” dr . aki ross ( ming-na ) and dr . sid ( donald sutherland ) plan to build a ” wave ” using eight collected ” spirits ” to counteract the phantoms and kill them off .
while the images serve the sci-fi aspect of the film well , the storytelling doesn’t .
it’s unfortunate , because the plot seems so intricately thought out .
perhaps it was far too complex and enormous to be entirely incorporated into the script .
some could blame this weakness on the fact that it was a japanese concept translated to english , except two americans wrote the screenplay .
nevertheless , the end result is an elaborate story complicated by confusing holes .
why do these aliens feed on souls ?
if they can pass through bodies and ships , how can humans hurt them with guns ?
what is so special about the ” spirits ” that they would create a force strong enough to destroy the aliens ?
worse yet , the dialogue is scripted to be either like a science-heavy star trek episode , an installment of die hard , or a sappy love story , depending on who’s doing the talking .
for the most part , it’s bearable considering the genre , but tedious speeches and cheesy lines don’t do anything to help the actors and can get annoying in the longer scenes .
the only exception is steve buscemi as pilot neil fleming , who always has great cracks during tense moments .
but , when the lights come up and the credits roll , you’re more likely to be remarking on how fantastic the film looked .
there’s no question that the roughly 33 million people who have bought at least one final fantasy game will be eager to see this movie , and so should anyone who enjoys being floored by the best cg animation ever put to film .
you’d be living in a fantasy world of your own if you expected much more .