The Good
The visuals, of course. The amount of attention given to the details of the character and backgrounds is nothing less than amazing. I could not remember a time in the movie where there was a person who just stood there like a lifeless dummy, even in the background. At times, the CG images are so convincing that you forget that it's not real.

Each character in the movie had their own artist. For example, one person worked solely on Aki while another worked on only Grey. While it's obvious that some artists were more skilled than others, there are two characters that stood out in my mind; Dr. Sid and the villian who looks like a goth Seifer (whose name escapes me). They were second only to a real person. Their features were near flawless and their movements seemed very natural. There was one scene near the end where the villian and his surroundings looked so lifelike that if I were shown this scene without being told it was CG, I would've never been the wiser. It seems very fitting that those would be the two most likable characters of the cast, in my opinion.

The Bad
All in all, I found Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to be a dull movie. The action scenes weren't exciting. The funny quirps weren't humorous. The sad parts weren't sorrowful. The dialogue was awful and trite. The plot twists were more like plot curls. And the plot, not only being flimsy and full of holes, also wasn't anything I haven't seen before. Anyone who has every played Final Fantasy VII will notice that the movie seems to be something of an updated version of the story. Why, give me almost any aspect of the movie and I can give you the match-up from the game. Aki and Aeris. Dr. Sid and Bugenhagen. The Zeus Cannon and the Sister Ray. The Impact Crater and the Northren Crater. The Phantoms and JENOVA. Grey's team and AVALANCHE. Basically, if you've played Final Fantasy VII, you won't be in for many surprises in the movie.

The Ugly
There are many times where the characters' movements appear very unnatural. While I'm not necessarily implying that they are robotical, they definatly do not feel human. This makes some scenes hard to swallow as reality.

The phantoms are hideous. And while the vile, monsterous appearence is something to aim for, that's not what I meant when I said hideous. The very handling and models themselves are ugly and in my opinion at least, make any scene where they appear seem very artifical and unpleasent to watch.

The Verdict
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a heartaching attempt at an epic story, which ends up falling short early on. But you won't notice that, because you will be too busy admiring the visuals and checking out Aki's (or Grey's, depending on which side of the fence you're on) well rendered ass.

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