Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
I remember straight up HATING Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within back when it came out in 2001. I was a sophomore in college and playing through Final Fantasy VII at the time on legacy consoles, and got a little butthurt that it was “Final Fantasy enough!” and instead chose to just take the name and a few character ideas and create it’s own unique story. Years later it became one of the first Blu-rays on the market for Sony and one of their big demo discs in a time when most Blu-rays were barely moderate upgrades over the DVD counterparts (there’s a reason a lot of those 2007-2008 Blu-rays have all been re-done by the studios with remasters) and I remember forcing myself to revisit the movie. Color me surprised but after putting my preconceptions down and taking a break from the subject matter I was able to look at the film in a new light. Is it a great Final Fantasy flick? Not in my personal opinion. But it is a fun sci-fi action romp that does a lot better than many of the other Sony CGI animated films (such as the Resident Evil or Starship Troopers animated films) taken from games.

Sometime in the future the Earth is under siege from alien invaders. The aliens are made of pure energy and can suck the life out of a person just by touching them. Humanity has hunkered down into energy field surrounded cities, creating weapons that can fight the unstoppable monsters. Aki Ross (Ming-na Wen) and Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) are both scientists working to create an energy wave that will cancel out the energy signature of the invaders (given the name of phantoms due to their ability to pass through solid matter) and eliminate them once and for all. Sid is convinced of the ancient Gaia theory, and that the Aliens are a spirit force similar to the energy signature of our very own planet. However, the rest of the human council, including General Hein (James Woods) think it’s ludicrous, and that using their highly advanced Zeus cannon fired into the heart of the Phantom base should eliminate them once and for all.

Sid and Aki manage to convince the council to hold off on Zeus in fear that it might damage the planet and rush to finish gathering the 8 “spirits” that Sid believes hold the key to creating a wave pattern parallel to the Phantoms energy signature. However, Hein is not to be trifled with and is looking for just the opening he needs to use the Zeus cannon and wipe everything off the planet for good. Meaning that Aki and a romantic love interest soldier named Gray (Alec Baldwin) have to rush and find that 8th spirit before the general does something everyone will regret.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is Final Fantasy in name only, and really only a title card letting everyone know that it was a Square Productions animation project. There is NOTHING Final Fantasy about it. But if that is put aside, the movie itself is still a lot of fun. There’s a lot of big name actors (for the 2000 era) putting their weight behind charaters, ranging from the fast talking Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin (best known for Roz Doyle of Frasier) and Alec Baldwin as Gray. The story isn’t anything to write home about, and recycles the ancient Gaia theory as it’s central premise, which is both a good and bad thing. It adds a mystical element to the movie that keeps it from being a bland sci-fi venture, but also cheeses things up a bit (and don’t forget some of the dialog, which is stilted and cheesy to the max at times).

Baldwin himself is a bit stiff as Gray, while Ming-Na Wen is actually spot on for Aki. James Woods hams it up to level 11 as Hein, giving him the sort of comic book maniacal nature that is needed for this type of story. Buscemi is sadly under used with cheesy one liners, but Ving Rhames and Peri Gilpin doing solid backup jobs. All in all, this is a fun popcorn sci-fi animated flick that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s got guns, pretty animation (especially for the time) and it’s story makes a TON more sense than Kingsglaive or Advent Children to the average viewer.




Rated PG-13 for Sci-fi action violence




4K Video: Video:

I remember this film being a stunning work of CGI animation when it came out in 2001. Now it looks a lot creakier around the seams and the lack of fluid motion, mouth control, and general lack of detail by modern standards is VERY obvious how far animation has come. The Blu-ray looks even worse in reality, but still a solid ENCODE (not be confused with weak animation). However, despite the aging CGI the UHD shows palpable increases in clarity and detail levels. The CGI lines are crisp and cleaner than ever, and you can see way more details on the ground of Tucson (my home town ironically) than on the Blu-ray. There is a little bit of banding baked into the transfer (look behind Aki as she’s reading Dr. Sid’s journal in the lab) but overall the image is pretty artifact free except for that and some minor noise spikes.

The HDR application (like many times) is the real shining star here though. The obvious improvements from the blue and red and shiny green color tones of the film really pop and are visually enhanced compared to the Blu-ray. Even things like holographics or the pale white glows of lights seem to be more rich and vibrant. The black levels are so much more absorbing and deep than before. Remember that moment in the lab where I mentioned banding? The Blu-ray was just awash with black level banding, but the 4K UHD has the black levels just absorbing it all and not showing NEARLY the amount that was present on the Blu-ray. All in all, this is probably the best looking of the Final Fantasy movies that have gotten the 4K UHD treatment in the last year.








Audio:

Good night this is a bomb of a track. The LPCM 5.1 track on the Blu-ray is good and almost as powerful, but this Atmos track is a real treat. The surround immersion and overhead usage of Atmos itself is only a minor upgrade though, as it’s not a wildly nuanced track. Instead it’s a bass power bomb of epic proportions that had me finding new areas in my room to nail down as the sub 20hz frequencies just tore through my listening station. Voices are nice and clean, surrounds well placed, but that sheer visceral power form the low end is enough to make any bass head quiver with joy. That beginning battle sequence where Gray and his men come rescue Aki is jaw dropping, especially with the green landing pads as I had to pause the movie and hunt down a buzzing window plate in my room as it shook the window so badly that it almost wiggled out of position. Great mix, and a nice incremental upgrade over the Blu-rays LPCM track.






Extras:

• Two Feature-Length Commentaries
• Interactive Documentary: The Making of Final Fantasy
• Original Opening
• Aki's Dream Reconstruction
• On the Set with Aki
• Character Profiles
• Vehicle Scale Comparisons
• Compositing Builds
• Joke Outtakes
• The Gray Project
• Theatrical Trailers

Final Score:
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Honestly, this used to be my most hated Final Fantasy movie of the Sony trio due to it not being based around any of the game worlds, but as I’ve aged and rewatched the film, I’ve gained an appreciation for it’s story, as detached from the game world as it was. The Gaia mysticism has been used to death, but the fun sci-fi nature of the story, and the decent voice acting make this a great action popcorn flick for CGI fans. The 4K UHD has been handled VERY well from Sony, showcasing probable the best video encode of the 3 films, as well as a KILLER Atmos track and all the legacy extras that the Blu-ray had (all extras ARE on the Blu-ray to be fair, which is the exact same disc as the old 2007 Blu-ray). If you liked the film, then the 4K UHD will definitely please you and gives me pleasure to give it two thumbs up.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Ming-Na Wen, Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Keith David
Directed by: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Motonori Sakakibara
Written by: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, French, German, DTS-HD MA 5.1, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Castilian), Thai DD 5.1, Czech DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai
Studio: Sony
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 106 minutes
Blu-Ray Release November 16th, 2021

Recommendation: Good Buy

 

[Ralph Potts]

Greetings,

Feel like it's been too long since I have visited Mike. Totally agree with your review!

Regards,