|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| . | |
Member Of:  |
|
| . | |
|
|
|
| . |
|
Derivative of a diverse array of popular science fiction films, including: Star Wars, Starship Troopers, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Abyss, and most explicitly, Aliens, Columbia Pictures' new release Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within nonetheless is an astonishingly engaging, intelligent, and thoroughly suspenseful entry in this summer's lineup of would-be blockbusters. As you are already probably aware, the Hironobu Sakaguchi
film is loosely based on the massively popular series of Final
Fantasy video games, created by California's Square Soft,
Inc. Sakaguchi has produced or executive produced each entry
in the far-ranging saga, including the forthcoming Final
Fantasy X (due out in September). Actually, its nominal
heritage is possibly the only genuine disappointment to be found
in the film; despite the powerfully creative and intricate stories
to be found in Square Soft's games, Final Fantasy's
sole common ground with its role-playing precursors would seem
to be titular. Thematically, the film most closely approximates
Final Fantasy VII (1997), which pitted the intrepid
gamer against the reviled and environmentally unfriendly ShinRa
Corporation (sort of a far-future Exxon-cum-OCP, which has literally
drained the life force out of the living Earth to fuel its profit
margins and, incidentally, laid waste to the entire ecosystem).
The film opens on a breathtaking alien landscape, one that immediately
convinces the moviegoer that he or she is seeing something completely
new in modern cinema. Dr. Aki Ross, voiced by ER's Ming-Na (whose previous credits include The Joy Luck Club and the title character of Disney's animated Mulan), is the film's heroine, the young protege' of renegade scientist and naturalist Dr. Cid (veteran actor Donald Sutherland, in a surprisingly layered performance). The year is A.D. 2065, and Earth's few remaining living things (including humans) are largely restricted to city-sized, shielded domes, protected by an arcane energy barrier against the planet's new dominant life form: the mysterious, ethereal Invaders, who have no corporeal form but can literally snatch the soul from any living thing they touch. Ross, who resembles a waiflike, somewhat Asian Sandra Bullock, is the victim of strange, tantalizing dreams that seem to unfold in an accelerating, sequential order while she dozes. Each dream takes place on an unmistakably alien planet (the opening scene's bizarre setting) and features disturbing footage from an apparent war between unknown nonhuman entities.
Aki is assisted- and protected- by a squad of heavily armed American commandoes, collectively called "Deep Eyes". This group of young men and women is captained by Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin), who has a history with Aki- their initial estrangement, followed by a battle-spawned understanding and resumption of affections, forms one of the film's deftly handled, though obvious, subplots. Other members of Gray's elite Invader counterthreat force include: Ving Rhames (Baby Boy; Out of Sight) as the orphaned Ryan Whittaker; Peri Gilpin (the acerbic producer Roz on NBC's exceptional Frasier) as Jane Proudfoot; and the always engaging Steve Buscemi (Armageddon; the forthcoming animated Pixar feature film, Monsters, Inc.) as Neil Fleming. These are clearly only peripheral roles- you can tell, because their features are in no way as exquisitely rendered as those of the animated "leads" - but they are given a respectable amount of attention nonetheless, avoiding the cookie-cutter banality of many similarly realized genre also-rans. Each of these "redshirts" (with a nod to the Star Trek franchise) is afforded an adequate amount of screen time and at least one "pivotal" scene, and Buscemi, true to form, manages to monopolize the film's rather rare one-liners. The Invaders aren't Aki's only problem; she and Dr. Cid are
opposed by the brittle and overzealous General Hein (career screen
villain James Woods), who, rather understandably I thought, wants
to use an ultimate weapon parked in Earth's orbit to blow the
phantom Invaders into a parallel universe. But Aki's research,
and the Earth's governing council, stands between him and his
goal of purging the world from its new, deadly masters. With Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the bar for computer animation has been raised- perhaps impossibly high, for the next few years anyway. We see humans every day (those of us who dare to leave the caffeinated sanctuary of our neighborhood Starbucks do, anyway), and FF: TSW's digital simulacra, made of nothing more substantial than computer code and domesticated photons, still manage to be visually compelling enough to warrant the occasional double-take. Several dozen times during the 95-minute feature, the filmmakers managed to utterly convince me that I was watching "real life"- real people, real scenery, real machines, real events- instead of the astoundingly choreographed articulation of complex mathematical models and computer codes. For minutes at a time, the illusion was complete- and then, something would happen to break the spell. A shift in perspective, a slightly awkward movement, a momentary lapse in the synchronization of vocals with characters' lips and tongues. I'd blink, elicit another of my awestruck, scarcely audible "wow's", and smile wistfully, a little like a tourist who's been duped by a brilliantly deceitful Central Park card shark in a feat of sidewalk sleight-of-hand. My poor, thoroughly inundated analog senses were simply overmatched during these momentary vignettes; I could not follow the conductorís baton, could not nail down the stage magician's duplicity, could not extricate myself from the compelling, hypnotic depths of the Magic Eye print. I was thoroughly, not to mention happily, fooled. Yet the fact remains that despite Square Soft's confident claims of "hyper-Reality"- despite the film's comprehensive marketing campaign and some very complimentary critical hype- FF: TSW is emphatically not "photorealistic". This is by no means an indictment of Square Picture's breathtaking accomplishments here. FF: TSW often managed to deliver "photorealistic" elements- Sutherland's Dr. Cid, as far as I'm concerned, is far more lifelike than any entry in Arnold Schwarzennegger's, Jean-Claude Van Damme's, or Steven Seagal's extensive repertoire of cinematic cartoon characters. But few of these elements- Aki's mesmerizing, Clairol-commercial hair; various free-fall gymnastics; a passionate yet marvelously understated digital kiss- manage to maintain their brief charade of "photorealism". When FF: TSW does manage to transcend its inherent artifice, it's generally in minimal "lighting" and in frames which incorporate few moving elements. This is nothing new- effects-heavy productions have for decades relied on shadowy or nocturnal environments to mask any glaring post-production missteps, keep within the film's budget, and accomplish the greatest possible deception of the audience's sensory input. Witness films like Godzilla, Battlefield: Earth, and even Cameron's classic genre opus, Aliens- all employ this sort of cinematic sleight-of-hand to conceal the fact that their massive starships are mere chunks of plastic; that their superheroes are digitally enhanced; that their otherworldly monsters are just a hyper-realized Windows icon. Which is why I so admire risk-taking features like The Fifth Element, Starship Troopers, Titanic, and even the oft-maligned Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - though their sweeping digital environments are often somewhat cartoonish or overwrought, the filmmakers are nonetheless unafraid to show off their wares in broad daylight, in vivid color, in scenes positively saturated by phenomenally challenging interactions of brilliant light and subtly reactive shadows. It's far easier to fool the eye in near-total darkness, to introduce elements like rain and fog and subterranean gloom in order to distract the viewer from the inadequacy of the filmís laboriously realized chimeras. The films I just mentioned, despite whatever other flaws they may contain, aren't afraid of "letting their slip show". As a filmgoer, and a critical one, I find that nothing less than laudable in this era of reduced expectations. Although FF: TSW consistently displays this same sort of technique to minimize any awkwardness, or clumsiness, in its visuals, one shouldn't be too hard on Sakaguchi and his able crew of digital artisans-its consistently darkened environments are both appropriate to the film's postapocalyptic theme, and its horror-movie lineage (including the Alien franchise and Peter Jackson's criminally underappreicated The Frighteners). In fact, FF: The Spirits Within's rare "daylight" shots, primarily delivered in the course of Aki's intriguing fantasies, provide a skillfully subtle counterpoint to the rest of the film's dreary, airless gloom. You don't expect this kind of purposeful cinematography in an animated film- at least, not unless you're a connoisseur of the very highest-quality anime - especially one drawn, ostensibly, from a crowd-pleasing video game. It is yet another of FF: TSW's many, and varied, pleasant surprises, proving yet again that the bar for future animation has been set at an impressive altitude indeed. Digital-effects buffs will think they've been permanently powered down and downloaded into a cybernetic approximation of www.nirvana.org. The Invaders, Final Fantasy's otherworldly scourges, are truly the stuff of nightmares- faintly luminescent energy vampires who move as if dancing to some sort of multidimensional ballet, as scored by Trent Reznor and choreographed by Tim Burton. Although their calm, graceful movements are eerily beautiful, their innately destructive nature and physical features are truly disturbing; young, hyperimaginative children should be kept far, far away from this ReBoot-meets-H.R.Giger dystopia. The alien aggressors resemble nothing so much as H.R. Pufnstuf on acid; like 2001: A Space Odyssey a generation ago, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within might well transcend its explicit and unapologetic commercialism to become a midnight-movie destination for variously altered patrons seeking psychotropic stimulation. This is Heavy Metal for the postadolescent set- a spiritually contemplative, technologically advanced Full Metal Jacket. FF: TSW's bleakly realized, futuristic cityscapes are a tad underwhelming; the future's domed habitats seem to have drawn their inspiration from Judge Dredd and Battlefield: Earth, not exactly the most vaunted pedigree. But its vehicles and orbital vessels are very, very cool; Aki's personal conveyance, a scorpionlike descendant of (again) Aliens' Marine drop ship, blows A.I. 's police amphibicopter away as the year's most kick-ass futuristic vehicle. Few of FF: TSW's digital doppelgangers are truly 100% original: Baldwin's Gray, for example, strongly resembles a beefier Ben Affleck-cum-vintage-Superman. Sutherland's Dr. Cid could be the fraternal twin of veteran actor Robert Ellenstein, most recently seen as the Federation Council President in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Only Woods' tightly wound Gen. Hein bears no immediate resemblance to anybody even moderately famous; in a certain light, he might be mistaken for Gladiator's Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), but only if the maniacal Caesar took a significant volume of vitamin supplements and began a strict regimen of Suzanne Sommers' Brows of Steel. The film's dialogue is functional and matter-of-fact; Sakaguchi is perceptive enough to realize that he's not doing Shakespeare or Norman Mailer here, and he keeps any unreasonable dramatic aspirations locked firmly away inside his PowerBook. The plot is fast-paced and remarkably inventive; The Spirits Within manages to blend Blade Runner with Princess Mononoke, incorporating thoughtful Eastern mysticism with technological aptitude. It makes you wonder what the Dalai Lama might have done with the script for Star Wars; clearly, George Lucas isn't the only filmmaker out there who's thought of breeding spiritualism with sci-fi to create something new and wonderfully creative. The ending may not please everyone; like Cameron's The Abyss and Spielberg's summer clunker A.I. , Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within struggles to achieve some sort of transcendent meditative state in its final few minutes, a la 2001. Also like Cameron and Spielberg, Sakaguchi doesn't quite succeed; none of these guys seem to be able to duplicate Kubrick's smooth, effortless finesse while achieving a total lack of certainty. But it's a worthy effort, and the spirit of Final Fantasy's unconventional epilogue is, to its credit, far more in keeping with Japanese anime than Hollywood's typical commercial preoccupation with wrapping things up in a tidy, sequel-worthy bow. If you appreciated the conflicted conclusion of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you'll be more than satisfied with how FF: TSW plays out. Elliot Goldenthal's overtly- and unnecessarily- familiar score is, perhaps, the film's weakest and most exasperating element. Playing like nothing so much as a combination of temp tracks from Aliens, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and Princess Mononoke, the variously martial, rousing, and contemplative themes are a real distraction from the compelling on-screen hijinks. Numerous times during FF: TSW, I found myself blinking, my eyes becoming unfocused, as I struggled to remember just where I heard that exact music before. It was annoying, and it diminished the filmgoing experience as a whole. Goldenthal's career is sadly rife with this sort of blatant unoriginality- resume entries like Sphere, A Time to Kill, and Alien 3 read like a list of recording studio leftover reels. Still, he did manage to score the impressive Heat soundtrack - which leads me to believe that he's not really untalented, just lazy. That's even worse- an original, landmark film like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within really deserved to be scored by someone who would respect the uniqueness of the material. They should have sprung for John Williams, or Hans Zimmer, or Michael Kamen. In conclusion: slickly melding elements of science fiction, mysticism, and straightforward action, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within marks a genuine watershed in the evolution of modern film. Its consistently impressive- even shocking- visuals herald the coming age of truly photorealistic cgi, and perhaps an end to seventy years of conventionally realized, hand-drawn animation. Drawing from influences as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott, and Stanley Kubrick, director Sakaguchi delivers consistently satisfying, suspenseful entertainment, a film that should set the standard by which similar endeavors are judged for years to come. Together with DreamWorks' sensational Shrek, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within should make an impressive showing on many critics' year-end Top 10 Lists- including mine. Ricks Ratings: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001; Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures) Cheese factor: 6 out of a possible 10 hunks of Limburger (Gray and Aki's apocalyptic romance; some heavy-handed sacrificial nobility; the filmís heavy Eastern-influenced spiritual undertones; the unrepentantly plagiaristic score) Pucker factor: 5 out of a possible 10 grimacing Yodas (various situational impossibilities and happy coincidences) Geek factor: 10 out of a possible 10 laughing Skolnicks (hey, the whole thing's cgi, and the ephemeral lead is a cyber-babe. What more could a nerd want?) Chick factor: 8 out of a possible 10 jiggling J.Lo's (she's cute, she's brassy, she takes a drag on a digital Kool, post-coitus. Plus, if she starts nagging ya, you can just hit CTRL / ALT / DEL) Bruckheimer factor: 9 out of a possible 10 boo-yah explosions (gritty, imaginative, and suspenseful; if you're bored watching this film, check your pulse, because you're probably dead) Rankin' Rick gives Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 8.5 out of a possible 10 popcorn tubs. Go see it in a digital projection theater, if possible- it's well worth it. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for language and some seriously un-cartoonish violence. This ain't no Wile E. Coyote on an Acme rocket, folks. Trailer Gossip : Trailers running in front of FF: TSW include the full-length ad for Monsters, Inc. , which should manage to staunch the Mouse House's bleeding after its disastrous summer entry Atlantis: The Lost Empire. (They should have called it Atlantis: We Had to Release Something, Right? ) Disney's digital partner, the amazing Pixar, hasn't made a misstep yet- and with a cast including John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Final Fantasy's Steve Buscemi, not to mention a hilariously original story, expect Monsters, Inc. to clean up in the weeks before the first Lord of the Rings entry is unleashed on a defenseless moviegoing public. Other noteworthy Final Fantasy previews were: the long-anticipated summer '02 release Spider-Man, starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst; Warner Bros' truly unnecessary Osmosis Jones, which resembles nothing so much as the illegitimate, unloved offspring of Fantastic Voyage and Cool World; and Black Hawk Down, directed by current Hollywood comeback king Ridley Scott and reuniting Pearl Harbor's John Hartnett and Tom Sizemore as doomed American soldiers in Somalia. . |
||||
|
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
Unlike
the minimalist, Styrofoam-meets-Hobby-Lobby planetary design
of most genre films (particularly the consistently disappointing
Star Trek features, which despite their
impressive budgets manage to depict supposedly extraterrestrial
vistas which appear both cheap, and North American),
Final Fantasy: TSW's famed and total
dependence on computer-generated imagery ('cgi') permits the
film to realize truly unprecedented technological, geological
and biological constructs. The surface of the unnamed world staggers
the mind, resembling nothing so much as classic science fiction
book covers glimpsed through Salvatore Dali's obliquely paranoid
eyes. It is at once captivating and foreboding; grasping crags
of impossibly articulated rock dagger the predawn sky, rendered
with such minute attention to detail that one is momentarily
rendered virtually speechless. It's not completely
'photorealistic', a goal that has become the Holy Grail of many
modern filmmakers; but it's close enough to engender brief gasps
of incredulity and the occasional whispered, "Wow".
I should know. "Wow" is a word I breathed at least
thirty times during FF: TSW.
Aki, suspicious that
her nighttime visions are in some way related to humanity's struggle
against the Invaders, is recording her dreams while assisting
Dr. Cid in the identification and collection of various Terran
flora and fauna, which have somehow survived the Invadersí
thirty-year occupation of Earth. Without giving away too much
of the film's intriguing plotline, Aki's twin pursuits- of the
hidden meaning in her dreams, and her increasingly diverse menagerie-
are central to FF: TSW's imaginative and refreshing
narrative.
He hatches a scheme to hobble
Aki and bring the council 'round to his way of thinking- a plan
that goes, unsurprisingly, very, very wrong. Much will be made-
and rightly so- of the film's dynamic and hauntingly realistic
imagery- most impressively, its portrayal of human characters,
which are easily the most brilliantly realized animated figures
in any feature-length production, ever. Sure, the beasts of Jurassic
Park and its sequels look nice, but then again, what have we
got to compare them to? Watercolors in children's books? No real-world
equivalent exists for the T. Rex, the Stegosaurus, or even the
third installment's new "terrible lizard", the Spinosaurus.
So of course we, the enraptured public, let our jaws drop slackly
and drool, seeing a three-dimensional representation of what,
until recently, most of us could only see on two-dimensional
paper. Or in our youthful mindís eye.
|
|
|
|