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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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These news articles and all digitalmediafx.com content are ©copyright 2001 by Joe Tracy and may not be reused for any purpose without expressed written consent of the author and Digital Media FX. All rights reserved.