Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Hironobu Sakaguchi / Moto Sakakibara, Japan / USA, 2001, 106 minutes

"This is all beginning to make a creepy kind of sense...”

Dr. Aki Ross is one of the few surviving humans on Earth. Since the asteroid struck and the alien “phantoms” arrived, almost all life has been wiped off the planet, leaving only isolated pockets of people living in shielded cities. The military are keen to strike the invaders with full force, but Aki believes that this will not work, and that only combating the invaders using “bio-etheric” energy waves will work.

Coming from the videogame company Squaresoft, the plot is definitely as far fetched as their games, involving a fusion of high tech computers and somewhat dubious Gaia theory culminating in a story that would be rejected by Ed Wood for being too implausible. The script and acting are not on par with a blockbuster science fiction epic such as Aliens, Star Wars, or even Men in Black. Why, you might ask, are Filmsoc showing such a film? The simple answer is because this is the first film realised entirely on computer which attempts to portray reality, even a science fiction reality.

Unlike Shrek, Monsters Inc., Toy Story and other similar offerings this film is pitched as Anime epics like Akira or Ghost in the Shell, and it succeeds in the same way. The visuals are lavish and fantastical; brilliantly conceived machines, warped visions of the future, and grotesque monsters, usually confined to animation, come alive. Peoples’ hair, skin, clothes and facial movements are excellently reproduced, allowing suspension of disbelief in a way previously impossible for a computer generated movie. If you squint a bit it almost looks real.

It’s clear that there’s still a long way to go before a movie headlined by a CG actor will win critical acclaim; but this is definitely the first step towards an inevitable future, where the difference between reality and digital effect is imperceivable.

Review by George Williamson
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2002