Review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Review)
Thursday, 20th December 2007, 07:33

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Introduction
Final Fantasy fans are the worst. Nary a word can be spoken against their beloved franchise without vitriolic retorts, constant comparisons of the grandiose fantasy stories presented in the games to the great works of Tolkien and Lucas, and to the chagrin of almost everyone, the inability to recognise their faults and conveniently gloss over any gameplay defects as minor trivialities in an, according to them, incomparable game series.

And I should know, because I am one.

It was the release of Final Fantasy VII in the west which introduced a generation of gamers to a new breed of gaming - RPGs, games where the most important elements are story and characterisation and the sense of being involved in an epic quest. Many, myself included, still consider it to be their personal favourite game, not least of which because it - and the PlayStation's CD format - brought with it sights and sounds previously unimaginable to a collection of gamers who had never before been enthralled with a game in the same way as they had been by movies. When Final Fantasy VII broke the west and started raining money down on its creators, pre-production began on what would become 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within', taking the successful FF formula and transplanting it into a movie, to see if the same magic that held its spell over gamers could work for movie-goers too. Released in 2001 and voiced by the likes of Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin and James Woods, the fully CGI feature opened to mixed reviews and box-office disaster, but most rightly hailed the film as the first step in creating truly life-like computer-animated humans.

Research scientist Aki Ross is plagued by dreams which compel her to find a way to rid Earth of the Phantoms, an ethereal race of hostile aliens that have taken over the planet and forced human civilisation to barricade itself in shielded, impenetrable cities. She sets out to gather the eight spirits, materialisations of the planet's lifeforce, which can be used to drive the invaders away. But while she finds support in the form of wise-cracking Marine Corp section The Deep Eyes, she faces resistance from a stubborn military general who plans to use a devastating space weapon, one which could endanger the well-being of the planet, instead.

Video
Presented in anamorphic 1.85:1, the Blu-ray transfer, as compared to that of the DVD, is good - certainly an improvement on the SD footage - but perhaps not the BD showcase disc to convert naysayers. The textures certainly benefit from the high definition transfer, with improved resolution and vividness, and there's an improved sharpness throughout, but colours aren't as quite as deep as I'd expected them to be, especially at the darker end of the spectrum, and the grain filter applied to the feature in hi-res proves to be a little irksome against the improvements made elsewhere. As the film is entirely 3D computer rendered footage, it should fare better than live action at a higher resolution, but despite the cleaner, sharper palette and visuals free from the slight digital artefacting noticeable in the region 2 DVD, this doesn't prove to be the case here.

* Viewed on a 32" 1366 x 768 panel at 720p

* The screenshots featured here are for illustrative purposes only. They were not taken from the Blu-ray source, and as such, the images are not representative of the quality of the disc.



Audio
PCM and Dolby Digital 5.1. No uncompressed PCM-compatibility here, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 is a strong surround track that ticks all the right boxes but knows not to overdo it. Battling Phantoms and the roar of the Black Boa create significant low-end-crunch, and the directional spot effects really put you in the middle of the action. The score, with the exception of the lovely ending theme, is nothing to write home about but dialogue is clear, although I did find myself having to balance the required volume between the action and non-action scenes; listening levels for action scenes seemed a little hushed for dialogue, whereas the booms and blasts had to be turned down a little following the more sedate scenes. Of course, if you have no neighbours or hey, don't really care, whack it all the way up and you'll have no problems. Sorted!

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