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Digital
Media FX News Archives
Wednesday
- July 11, 2001
- Final Fantasy Opens to Negative
Reviews
- More Osmosis Jones
Images
- Final Fantasy Playing Digitally
in 7 Theaters
- News Link of the Day
- Final Fantasy Film - No Real Actors
Final Fantasy
Opens to Negative Reviews
 (by
digitalmediafx.com) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within opened
to mostly negative reviews today as the realistic animated movie
made its way into 2,500 theaters nationwide. Here is a sampling
of critic comments:
Michael
Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter - "Unfortunately,
the visuals aren't the only aspect of the picture that appear
to have been computer generated. Boasting truly robotic storytelling
and laughably artificial dialogue that even the voice talents
of Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Alec Baldwin and Ming-Na are
unable to animate, this futuristic sci-fi snooze-a-thon will be
detecting little evidence of a box-office life force, at least
on North American soil..."
Mike Antonucci
of the San Jose Mercury News - "Irrational exuberance
is no healthier for technology movies than it is for technology
stocks... Deflate your expectations now and you stand a much better
chance of appreciating Final Fantasy for the mixed achievement
is..."
Steve Murray
of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - "...While the progress
in animation 'reality' is impressive, the characters sometimes
suffer a kind of weightlessness; the animators may have finessed
the human form, but not the effect of gravity on it. (Aki's hair
often floats around her face as if it were a live thing.) That's
not a problem for the aliens. They don't pay attention to gravity
or physics. They're things of creepy beauty, 'spirits within'
that are likely to tickle your geek within."
Chris Vognar
of the Dallas Morning News - "If only the story could
inspire more than moment-to-moment admiration. Final Fantasy is
a faux-spiritual spectacle that goes on about Guya and spirit
waves, all the while delighting in its own big guns and displaying
nary a clue about weaving a cogent tale."
Roger Moore
of the Orlando Sentinel - "Final Fantasy joins
Tomb Raider and The Phantom Menace as movies whose
moronic stories are mere vehicles to get the viewer from one game-challenge
sequence -- a chase through canyons, a battle with aliens -- to
the next..."
Final Fantasy:
The Spirits Within is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
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More Osmosis
Jones Images
(by digitalmediafx.com) Yesterday,
Digital Media FX published an article taking a closer look at
Warner Bros. Osmosis Jones movie. Here are three more images
from the movie:
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Final Fantasy
Playing Digitally in 7 Theaters
(by digitalmediafx.com) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
opened today in more than 2,500 theaters with seven of those theaters
airing the movie digitally. Digitally theaters enhance the visual
presentation of the movie without "dropouts" often seen
in 35mm movies. Toy Story 2 was the first animated film
to ever be released digitally. Since then several animated films,
including Shrek and Atlantis: The Lost Empire have
had digital releases. Monsters, Inc. will also have a digital
version available.
The seven
theaters the film is airing digitally at are:
AMC Empire,
New York City
Edwards Irvine Spectrum, Irvine, Calif.
AMC Media 6, Burbank, Calif.
Cinemark Legacy, Dallas
Famous Players Paramount, Toronto
AMC Barrington, Chicago
AMC Van Ness, San Francisco.
Be sure to
request the digital screening of the film when ordering tickets
as it may also be playing on multiple screens in the 35mm format.
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News Link
of the Day - Final Fantasy Film Features No Real Actors
According
to the Philadelphia Daily News:
"A Screen
Actors Guild strike was narrowly averted last week, but that's
not stopping Hollywood from trying to eliminate its dependence
on live performers. Consider Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,
the new, totally computer-generated science-fiction animated film
with synthetic thespians.
Could this
be the future of the movies, an indication of how little flesh-and-blood
actors are really needed?…"
Click
here for the full story.
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