Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17795 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-11-05
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Synopsis
Directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (who also created the best-selling series of video games that inspired the film), the groundbreaking Final Fantasy, which stars a startlingly lifelike cast of animated characters, is the first photo-realistic computer-generated feature film ever made. In the year 2065, Earth has been taken over by a race of alien phantoms and transformed into a barren wasteland sprinkled with dome-enclosed barrier cities--the last remaining bastions of human civilization. Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by actress Ming-Na) has teamed up with Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) to search for the "eighth spirit," a powerful entity dwelling in an unknown life form somewhere on the planet. It holds the key to perfecting a system of energy waves that will neutralize the phantoms. Ross's opponent is the reckless General Hein (James Woods), who is determined to put a stop to the alien invasion by firing a satellite cannon directly into a nest of phantoms located deep within the Earth, even though this could mean obliterating the planet itself and all life upon it.

Customer Reviews

Nearly perfect presentation
I agree with pretty much all of the above reviews.

I would like to comment on the b-ray presentation, Picture quaality in nigh on suberb unfortunately, I did notice several scenes littered throughout the movie where backgrounds suffered from posterization. Now, I'm not sure if these flaws were present in the original picture or not. Scenes like Aki's ship landing in the opening 3:20, in the council chambers at 21:07 etc. For me that cost the review 1 star.

Sound quality is faultless.

Misunderstood
This film is very misunderstood. It has a good story if you can follow it and likeable characters. The problem may be that the story may be too reliant on prior knowledge of the planet and its situation. In a final fantasy game we have around 70 hours to get to know the world and the story. In this film we have around 140 minutes and maybe they were too ambitious trying to get a similar story in that time. But it also has a great ecological message, we should respect and nurture the planet.
Anyway, on another note, at the time, these visuals were cutting edge, and the animation is still probably the finest example of a human like performance I have ever seen. If you are an animation buff then this is definately worth seeing and if you are just a sci-fi fan this is great story, unfortunately ruined by pandering to the american market. By that I mean they did not encapsulise something like 2001 or 3rd encounters. Something Intellectual not just trying to be action based, which unfortunately this film descends into.

Highly Under-Appreciated
The Story: A female scientist known as Aki Ross engages in a race against time to gather together spirit entities which would help her defeat invading Alien spirits threatening Human existence. Along the way she is joined by the prestigious Deep Eyes squadron who's Captain is an old friend of Dr. Ross. Dr. Cid is in a struggle to convince a critical government that these spirits or Phantoms can easily be defeated by collecting these entities rather than using firepower which Cid knows is making the spirit situation worse.

The Review: Since first seeing this film in 2001 I have always been a big supporter and defender of this film. The storytelling is simply superb as it introduces us one by one to each character and makes us feel sympathetic towards these characters and their fight to solve the problem that is plaguing the Earth.

The animation even when compared to todays standards is truly spectacular and was evidently ahead of its time. The animation of this film is comparable to many of the cut scenes from this generation of video gaming, showing us that the level of realism achieved in this film is easily doable now and it makes me think the animators should make a new film to show us what they can achieve with todays technology.
The suspense and drama of some scenes is something that I don't feel can be matched by a lot of todays films. For example the scene when the spirits invade a human habitat which originally protected them, the chase scenes and the general emotion is placed within you through your belief in the characters.

The primary criticism that people have of this film is the slow pacing, which many American or UK movie goers wouldn't be used to as it's a very Japanese style of storytelling which is known for being slow paced but has a real purpose for its pace. Over the years many Asian movies have become cult favourites amongst American and UK audiences. Movies such as Lady Vengeance and Oldboy are prime examples of how the Western audiences have begun to embrace this style of storytelling, which I believe if Final Fantasy were to be released in the Cinemas today it would gain a much better reception than it did when it was first released.

The voice casting is spectacular with a truly stellar cast of names such as Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi to name but a few and they genuinely do not disappoint.

A very, very good movie and a must for all those Sci-Fi, Drama and animation fans.