Now here is a movie that was once hinted to be in the works. It appeared behind an instruction manual belonging to the Final Fantasy IX video game. I have been the one who would play Final Fantasy IX over and over again, often motivated to develop the skills and personalities of the characters, even before Final Fantasy X and X-2. Here is what I loved about the game, besides the game play: the humor, the character development, the plot(s), and even the timeline.
So after the movie came out, I had read about its performance in the box office and how it fared against the expectations of the critics and fans alike. So to see why this movie was an extremely detrimental bomb and received mixed reviews from critics, I am going to take the time to watch and examine this video game movie.
You have to be frank, the C.G.I. is visually superior even at the time of its making. The characters all look so realistic that they look like real people. This is near high-definition.
When I thought of a movie based on the video game series, I was thinking it was set in the same timeline as the video games themselves; but it is not. It is set in the year 2065 AD, the earth (no, it is not called Gaia) is ravaged by alien forces known as phantoms, and the human race is on the verge of extinction. The earth has a spirit called the Gaia--what a way to go--which can be harmed if it were subjected to laser blasts. Now most would call that implausible, and contrary to the stories from the Final Fantasy games.
Now let's look at the characters: we have Dr Aki Ross, Dr Sid, Captain Gray Edwards, Ryan, Jane, Neil, commanders from the Deep Eyes Squadron. Aki Ross is constantly having all these dreams in which phantoms are constantly plaguing her (she does reveal that they are swarming within her, weakening her will to ward them off).
Let me just be direct: most of these characters are thinner than paper; they lack the growing personalities of their video game counterparts; and there was probably little or no chemistry between any of the characters. Speaking of which, there was between Gray and Ross, but that seemed damp and lukewarm.
They don't even last long enough on screen as they killed off even before the film really starts to take off. We do not see much in them except that they bicker from time to time, or just do the job of annoying us by talking too much.
When I think of the Final Fantasy games, I think of journeys to certain locations where the role leads encounter dangerous enemies and engage in battles--battles where we see special skills, physical and magical, unleashed at incredible levels. But that is missing here, and we only see one kind of enemy, which doesn't work to my expectation as a Final Fantasy fan.
But at least there is hardly any fault to find in this movie; it's just the essential elements integral to the games this movie was based on.
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