About Final Fantasy, I'm sorry but you're just plain wrong!!!

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the first, and currently last, film incarnation of Squares popular Final Fantasy series of video games. Sadly video games and movies are vastly different mediums and sometimes you do have to admit that a project should never have gotten it's feet off the ground. I am not going to make such a claim against Final Fantasy though, because personally I always felt, and still feel, that the narrative structure of the Final Fantasy series is perfect movie fodder; and that this first film version has captured that structure perfectly.

The problem is that there are a lot of people who hold Final Fantasy so close to their hearts that they eventually miss out on the bigger picture. These are the people who made the most noise when the film was released, screaming from the rooftops about how the film was a complete blasphemy with it's shallow preachy storytelling that held absolutely nothing in common with the games. To these people I now offer up a hearty "I'm sorry, but you're just plain wrong!"

The story to The Spirits Within sees these alien spirit things being released from a crashed meteor and causing havoc when their opposite energy patterns begin neutralizing our own. A scientist named Dr. Cid (Final Fantasy always has one of these guys) manages to utilize our own spiritual energies in order to produce weapons and shields against the creatures. The military feel the time has come to take action against the aliens using force, but Cid believes that too much force would kill the Planet. He believes in the Gaia (The spirit of the planet) and so sends his assistant Aki out to locate 9 theoretical spirits that combined would have an energy pattern that would neutralize the alien spirits for good.

I know that this all sounds like new age nonsense, but then this is what Final Fantasy has always been like. Most of the games I am familiar with have used the Gaia philosophy, non more so than the VII which came out at the same time as the film was being written. The writers haven't been preachy though, instead they have done exactly what they always did with the games in using the various philosophies to produce an entertaining fantasy. I wouldn't say that the story comes close to the complexity of the games, but then it is around 98 minutes shorter so this is understandable. What is less understandable is the audience's reaction to this story as complete trash. Allow me to quote one of the films detractors...

"i though this movie was ok but then i remembered it was made afeter a video game and i though this movie has nothing to do with the video games. no wizards or giant bugs or dragons or magic or spells or anythinf. it kinda sucked that they didnt fallow the game. they could have mad a good movie like a lord of the rings tipe fantasy movie. or they could have mad a futuristic movie kinda like 7 8 and 9. "

which is one of the worst examples I have read, but still it remains that even the most intelligent fans of the games seem unable to move away from the magical angle of it. Not content to simply enjoy a story that contains the same mix of the scientific and the spiritual, having similar themes and ideologies and a near identical look. No that is irrelevant to most fans who cannot get by without their beloved Firaga. Personally I think the cheese factor is seriously diluted without characters constantly screaming Firaga, Blizaga, Thundaga, in fact I feel that any movie script is better off without including words that end in aga (yes, even the almighty Wateraga!) Personally I have always felt that these type of fans need to go back to the games and ask themselves why Life will bring back a character that dies in battle, but leaves a character that dies during a cut scene screwed. It's because these magical abilities that they so cherish are narratively irrelevant, they exist to make the battles tactical and not to tell the story. It is of much more important to Hironobu Sakaguchi, who wrote both the film and the games, that he portray the character interactions and dramatic fantasy aspects, even though this means losing the entire Aga thing.

I would have to say that he has achieved those goals remarkably as the interaction between characters is a spot on recreation of the games. This time it actually benefits from voice acting though (the film came out before FFX which had weaker voice acting anyway) and whoever it was sitting on the casting couch has made some very wise decisions. Alec Baldwin (Mercury Rising) and Ving Rhames (Lilo & Stitch) are disappointments, seeing as how both manage nothing more than fitting their voices to their characters. However Ming-Na (Mulan) more than makes up for this with a down to earth performance of subdued emotion and suppressed fear. Steve Buscemi (Monsters, Inc.) and Peri Gilpin (Frasier) share the chemistry as the squads bickering pair who like each other really. Buscemi using his perfect timing to portray the wise cracking Neil and Gilpin sounding surprisingly tough as Jane, the macho woman with hidden feelings. Then Donald Sutherland (The Italian Job) uses his own experience to add a sense of emotional authority to Dr. Cid, really bringing alive the secondary character until he surpasses everyone else. Finally there's James Woods (Hercules) who has a lot of fun as the evil Sephiroth type villain General Hein, using a much darker tone of voice than the role of Hades would ever have allowed.

To be perfectly honest I can understand why someone would have a dislike for the dialogue. It's very stilted, getting the message across without sounding particularly believable. I'm willing to forgive this since it was written in Japanese then translated, but you should defenitely not go in expecting the characters to talk the way normal people do, though if you've played the games then you will notice a major improvement anyway.

What you may have noticed is that until now I've neglected to mention the films visuals. The reason is that I don't feel they are as important as people claim. They are very good, the best at the time, but still will age even more as films like Final Flight Of The Osiris get released. What wont change though is the fact that The Spirits Within is a serious fantasy full of exhilarating action scenes and strong character interaction. It has a thoughtfully written script that will answer most of your questions so long as you don't expect the writers to spell the answers out for you Matrix style; and for this reason I feel confident in giving the film 5 stars regardless of what others say.

This has been one of my entries into my I'm sorry but you're just plain wrong write off, whereby we have fun challenging the establishment. Find out the full details here http://www.epinions.com/content_3801522308