Final Fantasy Review

Final Fantasy is a great looking film, with state-of-the-art animation. But like any recent performance of Diya Mirza, the stunt wears off when you realize it's just a dumb cartoon.

All this talk about how great a film looks actually misses the greater point of how good the movie actually isn't. And that is Final Fantasy's own undoing. Like the bazillion other hackneyed sci-fi plots that seem to emerge from the doggy bags of directors' imaginations, Final Fantasy has superb visual appeal coupled with the IQ of a paralyzed rabbit.

Circa 2065 (shortly after the Platinum Jubilee of Basic Instinct), Ma Earth is in ruins, primarily because of a couple of aliens with bad table manners. NY looks like the top of Eddie Murphy's head and humans are as passé as baggy pants. The reason being the nasty plasticy looking aliens who suck the spirits out of the humans, giving Euroclean a clean run for their money.

Enter Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na), animation land's own May Queen, and her trusting mentor Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland), who must find the last eight spirits that have not been taken away by the 'Phantoms'. These spirits, not the evaporating sorts, hold the key to salvation. The posse is completed by buff nice-guy Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin), whom Aki finds herself taking a liking to (this, I find weird and extremely spooky).

The fly in this animatronic ointment is in the form of General Hein (James Woods) whose primary aim in life is to be as good a fly as can be.

That's the guff about this flick. It looks and feels so much like a video game that I'd rather play a game. Instead of a console, I unfortunately took a bag of popcorn and my attention span to see this flick - BIG mistake! It's especially spooky to see real-ish but unfamiliar animated stuff speak with real-ish and familiar celebrity voices. Why do they do that? It's like watching KBC in German - just doesn't feel right.

Anyway, the animation is great and the hair on Aki's head has more life than any recent Indian cricket match. The film makes for some fab escapism and thrills you initially. It sure beats Shrek- type animation anyday.

But hackney rules and stuff like Dr. Aki saying "Every night I have the same dream", "Will I be in time to save the Earth?"... Oh for God's sake. Ctrl - Alt - Del.