This was an absolutely amazing movie-going experience for me! I saw it yesterday, Wednesday, which was opening day. I cannot even begin to explain how exciting it was during the first opening scene! Such beautiful landscapes! Aki’s first closeup is stunning, revealing the intricate detail of her lifelike face. In fact the entire movie is so real that I had to keep reminding myself that these characters were not real actors. I nearly cried from the movie’s beautiful opening. It may also be that I hadn’t seen a movie since “Spy Kids” so it was great to be back in a theater. Plus, I was in a brand new Ultra Star with excellent sound. But the visuals were absolutely mind bending!!!
Anyone who likes fantasy, sci-fi, animation or cool plots, go see this movie! It’s beautiful! I felt stupid for wanting to cry, especially because I didn’t know why. But, my boyfriend felt the same way about it. It was just so spectacular, I felt as if I was witnessing history take place. The CG actors are so real! I can’t stop gushing about them. I also liked the music, and the plot was great too! Although it didn’t follow the old Final Fintasy tradition of spells, and medieval themes, it did mix science with spirituality. It was pretty deep for a “cartoon.” I was so glad that they didn’t cast the voices to sound cartoony either. That always is a dead giveaway that what we are witnessing isn’t real. During the first 20 minutes I couldn’t keep whispering to my boyfriend how amazed I was that it was CG animation (much to the annoyance of his diehard FF fan brother)! Aki’s movements were so graceful and lifelike. Her sunspots, freckles, and fine lines added so much reality to her. Her mentor, an aged scientist, looks even more impressive with his wrinkles, and spotted bald head.
The story was great, dealing with phantoms within us (symbolism, yay), ghosts, and other worlds. It was quite an original plot. I only have one qualm which gives this movie a 4.5 instead of 5 stars:
It was too Americanized! I can understand that this movie was meant for the United States market because it would make more money that way, and that is why the dialogue is in English and dubbed to Japanese to play in it’s homeland (instead of vice versa). But, all the American cliche’s of cheesy catch phrases during action sequences and corny one liners just KILLED the movie right in the middle of it! Although the movement, facial expressions, and general look of the animated cast are magnificent, they still look fake when dialogue is added to their moving mouths. This could well have been avoided by making this a more visual movie, and staying away from too much dialogue, which wouldn’t have been hard with such an image based story such as this one. However, towards the middle of the movie, the dialogue is riddled with horrid punchlines, and generic cliches that totally destroyed the magic spell that had enveloped me during the mesmerizing beginning.
The magic began to return towards the end, but never quite reached the level it was at during the movie’s opening. This is because the middle was so pumped full of American formulaic blabber that reminded me too much of so many bad action movies I’ve seen. If only Square Pictures could have avoided this! The film was so beautiful otherwise! At least the dorky lines in the game were funny! This was just distracting!
Otherwise, though, this film was visually fantastic! The sound was also amazing (thank you, Skywalker Sound)! The entire imagery is so beautiful it will blow you away. This is, by far, the best computer animated movie of all time!