I just saw an early screening of Final Fantasy and I thought I’d swing by here to post a brief review and see what others thought.
As I said in an earlier thread, most people are expecting that Final Fantasy is simply Titan A.E. meets the Mummy Returns.
It is not.
Final Fantasy is a movie that contains a unique heart and has a passion that is not commonly found in major block-buster movies today. It is more about spirituality than it is getting stuff “blowed up”, so to speak.
This is a great movie. Not an excellent movie like 2001 or Star Wars, but a great Sci-fi movie that is worth seeing. Heck, it’s worth seeing twice.
One, it is beautiful beyond belief. The animation is better than what I had even expected. The doctor(Sid) is animated so real it actually is difficult to tell he is fake. The voice actors did a pretty good job bringing their characters to life, especialy Ming-Na and James Woods.
This is not a film that wimps out at the end. People die. Permament consequences are suffered. Life does not return to a heavenly state. In fact…nevermind. I don’t want to spoil anything.
This is more than a technological show-off(like Jurassic Park III). This is real movie with a real message that has real heart and should be seen.
I believe I have told you a lot of great things about this movie. So, wh holds it back from being an excellent movie or from being an instant classic(aside from its technology)? Probably the fact that it has some lame moments(bad jokes, melodramatic characters). Sure some jokes fly, but most don’t. Some characters are well-developed; most aren’t.
It falls into a few sterotypical Sci-Fi movie scenes very early into the film and doesn’t develop it’s own style until later. Boy, when it does, though, it really gets moving. I was amazed at the detail of the plot.
If I say more, I’d have to make this a spoiler-filled movie. So I’ll end here by telling you all to go see a great movie that is not just some action-anime type thing. If this was a great year of movies(like 1998) I’d give it 3 out of 4 stars. This year, I give it 3.5-4 out of 4 stars just to get you out to the theatre.
One last word of advice. Have no expectations. This is not a video-game adaptation to the screen. Just go in and be surprised, most likely pleasantly.
Oh, and the Spiderman teaser trailer was cool! Reallllly cool!
