Review: Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is really a technological fairy tale, the story of some software that wanted to be real actors in a real movie. Not so fast. It would take a platoon of Blue Fairies to take code this far. I've never played the game, but it has to be way more fun than this movie. How sad that the first studio film ever with human leads played by non-actors is so lifeless and plastic. The voices are out-of-sync like those Japanese sci-fi movies. At least the film could have had the decency -- give Tomb Raider some credit here -- to hire a real actor and have a little fun with itself. Dr. Lara Croft understood what she was created for -- to kick a lot of butt. Dr. Aki Ross, played here by some code with too much lip balm, is more like Enya, a new age scientist whose weapons are dreams and wiggly spirits rather than guns and bombs. Bring noseplugs to this stinker. And don't worry about the ending being given away here. I couldn't tell you what it was if I wanted to.

Yes, the animation is fine, occasionally terrific. There is no acting to speak of, and how could there be? There are only disembodied (like Godzilla) voices -- Ming-Na (Dr. Aki Ross), Alec Baldwin (Capt. Gray Edwards), Ving Rhames (Ryan), Steve Buscemi (Neil), Donald Sutherland (Doctor Sid) and James Woods (the evil General Hein).

The overall affect is cold and fake. Obviously, animation has warmed up the cartoon genre (Toy Story, Shrek) giving the characters color, depth, expression and dimension. But it has the reverse effect on traditional films, at least if Final Fantasy is any indication.

If software has given added depth to animated films, the characters in Final Fantasy don't quite make it to one-dimensional. They appear slow-moving, a click behind their own emotions, and utterly unbelievable and remote. The real actors doing the voice-overs are dramatic, almost desperate, to give the story some life. They can't. Beyond that, the plot is just stupid, a loopy, quasi-religious narrative that posits that aliens landed on the earth years earlier, and have since ferociously gobbled up most of its people and cities, for reasons that are never explained, and for that matter, are apparently inexplicable. Like seemingly every other sci-fi, game-based or techno-centered movie in the last decade, Final Fantasy takes place largely in a destroyed New York City. (Why is it always in a ruined Manhattan? The tall buildings?)

The ghostly aliens are squiggly, gummy, amoeba-like things (though some look like translucent dragons and serpents) that nobody on the Earth understands but Dr. Ross. They kill by contact rather than weaponry, swirling around their targets like mist. The nasty General Hein doesn't like science or scientists or people who are nice, and wants to blow the aliens all to Hell.

Dr. Ross's allies are her software-lover Capt. Gray Edwards, who makes Buzz Lightyear look like Robert DeNiro, and some heroic, cartoon cut-out soldiers. There's even a software kamikaze scene meant to be touching (nothing can make you care about these creatures.) Dr. Ross is attractive but never makes it to sexy. The coded characters all seem to have mastered the sad expression and the smile, but can't go any deeper. Dr. Ross and Dr. Sid exchange spirit mumbo-jumbo for nearly half of this movie's interminable 105 minutes. There isn't a single decent battle scene, for God's sake, blasphemy in a movie that purports to herald the ascent of the computer game over the traditional film.

Final Fantasy is bad news for moviegoers, but great news for human actors. It turns out there are still some things humans do a lot better than software.

Did I see the same movie?

Because I was treated to something that was an awful lot like an anime. You know, sometimes it's not a bad thing that plot isn't fully discussed. You'll never see an anime where every character's relationship with the world and one another is fully explained.

On top of that, the CG was phenomenal, amazing, stunning and really freaking sweet.

Ben Affleck was more lifelike in this movie.

I thought Ben Affleck couldn't act after suffering through Pearl Harbor. I found his role in this movie much more lifelike. It's good to see actors taking on more challenging roles.

Re:Wow (SPOILERS)

1. The theory of Dr. Cid (not Sid) was that life has a wave component, or can exist as a wave. They wanted to gather spirits (individual life forms with unique waves) so that they could superimpose their waves to generate a wave 180 degrees out of phase with the wave of the phantoms, which would nullify them. Standard Fourier and wave theory, in the magical land of anime of course.
2. It's a huge fucking gun. What more do you need? :) Perhaps it was also built with Cid's wave theories (see below).
3. He's less of an ass than a lot of other villains I could think of...
4. Humans seem to be able to hold off the phantoms, at least the little ones, with weapons they have. Plus, the impact crater may have been very far from the city. They would have had time to encounter the phantoms, see that they are a great danger, and construct the barrier quickly.

Yes, it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and wierd justifications. So does anime, and no one complains about that (this much).

Re:The games are better

They were both excellent games - but Sephiroth, IMHO, was much more of an *outstanding* villan than Kefka.

Kefka was indeed evil - but he was goofy-evil - the kind of evil where you're not afraid, or angry - you're annoyed. He made a great villan, but Sephiroth was...well...just so much more.

By the end of FF7, it was hard *not* to hate Sephiroth, be angry at him, and want to make him pay. He was always just that one step ahead of you - and he *knew* it. You came so *close* to fighting him throughout the entire game, but you were always denied - until the end. When the pseudo-dream sequence at the end happened, it was hard not to start cheering, yelling, and going nuts, because FINALLY you were giving him what he deserved. He was just an absolutely *perfect* character to have in a FF game - and Square hasn't developed a better villan yet, IMHO.

Wow...that was longer than I thought =)

Wow

I've seen Katz off-base before, but it's obvious he didn't understand a thing in the movie - nor, it seems, did he try to.

Perhaps the audio track was a bit off in the theatre he went to -- I don't know -- but in our theatre, the sound was synced pretty well -- there were a couple of spots where the sync was a *little* off - but not so much as to be the annoyance Katz makes it out to be. Buscemi's character seemed to get the worst of the desyncing, but again, it wasn't the bother Katz made it out to be.

The voice acting was pretty damned good, if you ask me - it may be that I'm an anime fan, and have suffered through hackdubs, and poorly acted voices more than most. I especially liked the fit of Donald Sutherland's voice to Cid - it matched VERY well (other than the "warm" line ;P )

Now - about the plot. Sure - it was a bit contrived. Some of the character development seemed a bit rushed - but overall, it wasn't bad. Katz missed the point of the plot - probably because he was so bothered by the sound - I don't know - but his analysis is pretty much totally off-base. I won't give it away - but if you've played FF7, you'll be wondering where Aerith is at the end ;P (I *think* the plot of the movie was conceived around the time FF7 was popular - and the influence shows)

The animation was phenomenal. It takes a *lot* to get *so* close to looking real. Some of the movement was a bit off (but very, *very* close - and some of the faces were a bit...strange (James Wood's character, the general, seemed to have been distorted into an evil mask - noone's that angry all the time ;P ) - but overall, they've pushed the envelope for realism in animation.

Especially the eyes. It's awesome to see animated characters whose eyes have real "depth" to them.

Now - all this being said, I think it didn't *quite* live up to the Final Fantasy name. DOn't get me wrong - it was a great movie - but there are a few Final Fantasy elements that were sorely missing.

First was the lack of medieval flair -- most (FF8 not included) Final Fantasy games all had a mixture of medieval swords & sorcery with high technology - that was part of what gave them their distinctive "flavor". This movie was ALL high-tech, and even a little bit on the military side -- kindof like a deeper Aliens movie.

A side note to this was the lack of Magic in general -- I was really looking forward to seeing Ultima being cast on the big screen - or even a couple Summons (Shiva? Ifrit? Bahamut?). Sadly, none made it into this movie, although one of the alien critters looked a bit like Leviathan...

The lack of Airships was bothersome - yes - they had the various spacecraft - and they were well-designed, but again, were lacking the flair of the grandiose FF airships.

The most glaring error, however, was the lack of a single, solitary Chocobo.

It's for these reasons that I think the movie, although very,. VERY good, didn't quite live up to the Final Fantasy name that was placed on it. Had it been simply called "The Spirits Within", I wouldn't have had a single problem with it.

Re:huh? non-actors?

Don't you guys perceive a distinction between Fred and Wilma and Ross and Rachel?

Were not stupid, Ross and Rachel wear shoes. Duh!

Final Fantasy..

From the review, it seems that all Jon Katz things computer games should be is lots of shooting, explosions, and similar inane garbage.
Personally, I love the games that don't have lots of bangs and mindless stomping around.
Final Fantasy the games were all about looking deeper into things, and not fitting in with the norm.
I've not yet gone to see it, but I wasn't expecting to see a high adventure movie in the same vein as Tomb Raider et. al.
I was expecting something with a little thought, that I'd have to think quite deeply on, and look for the meaning behind.
I'll reserve judgement until I've seen the movie, but I think slating it, just because it's something different, not just the usual guns and regular modus operandi of killing things, is pretty lame.

"I've never played the game"...

...and it shows when you say things like:

Dr. Aki Ross, played here by some code with too much lip balm, is more like Enya, a new age scientist whose weapons are dreams and wiggly spirits rather than guns and bombs.

There isn't a single decent battle scene, for God's sake, blasphemy in a movie that purports to herald the ascent of the computer game over the traditional film.

I have played the game(s), and a lot of the point was deciphering what the "real" plot was. In the beginning it often did seem to be a simple "the mad Queen must be stopped", but always there were multiple layers of truth and reality that had to be peeled away to reveal the true motivation of the game. And there was lots of questing for things along the way too. I think you're reviewing the wrong movie if you didn't expect it to be somewhat confusing to the newbie viewer, full of seemingly contradictory versions of reality, and ultimately solved by heroes that rely more on their innate abilities and their relationships to each other than on any amount of military hardware. Winning a war through pure shoot-em-up style mayhem has never been the plot of a FF game - it's like the difference between a "foreign" (non-US) movie with actual plot, characterization, and open endings, and the usual U.S. fare of "Legally Blonde", "Tomb Raider", and "Pearl Harbor". Maybe you should have just reviewed The Matrix or Tomb Raider again, Jon, and given this one a miss.

I can't comment on your other points, since I haven't seen the movie yet (maybe this weekend?), but it wouldn't surprise me that the voicing and the expressions aren't perfect. After all, this is the first time something like this has been tried. It's still a huge advance over the animation of the humans in Toy Story or even Shrek, though - maybe your negative comments are because the animation was close enough to looking real that the remaining slight failings were especially jarring?

Oh yeah and one more thing:

(Why is it always in a ruined Manhattan? The tall buildings?)

I can answer that - I'd destroy New York City in a heartbeat, and I'm not even a malevolent alien race :)

Re:Katz hates it?

Anyone else notice that Jon Katz is sounding more and more like that entertainment critic from The Onion - Jackie Harvey?



MMDC Mobile Media [mmdc.net]

Katz hates it?

Then I gotta go see it... it should be great.

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Re:It was amazing

And, like most Anime, even low-end work like the Pokemon movies, it works a lot better if you were raised Japanese, or have more than a passing familiarity with Shinto.

You know, you may be right - I don't know much about Shinto.

But when I think about the plot, aside from the visuals, it still wasn't anywhere as bad as Katz makes it out to be. The times when you totally forget that the characters are CG are the times when you are totally engrossed in the story.

And do you really need to have every plot element explained to you in detail? I *like* movies that leave you with questions when you leave the theatre.

I think that Roger Ebert's review [suntimes.com] hits most of the salient points.

And I stand by my original statements. The visiuals were simply amazing and worth the price of admission to me.

It was amazing

Why did I expect Katz would toe the line with this review?

I thought the CG was simply awe-inspiring. Sure, it isn't perfect, but this was simply the most beautiful piece of work ever shown on the big screen.

The story was not amazing, but it isn't as bad as some people (read: Katz) make it out to be.

I hope we get to see more of this genre. Do yourself a favor, go see the movie and then form your own opinion.

huh? non-actors?

the first studio film ever with human leads played by non-actors

What does this mean? Does he mean this is the first movie with animation instead of "real" photographs of "real" people? Um, that's pretty obviously false, so he must mean that the people who did the voices (Baldwin, Southerland, Woods, etc) are "non-actors" - either way, it's beyond moronic.

Re:"I've never played the game"...

No kidding! The FF-style storylines are normally very complex and very deep... In a game, you've got 20-60 hours of gameplay in which you get to mill over and decipher the storyline, so it makes a bit more sense. Sadly, they had to try to cram an FF-quality storyline into a 2-hour movie, and I think that was its greatest weakness.... time.

The storyline, of course, borrowed from a bunch of story ideas in the past (Gaya vs. FF7's lifestream?, phantoms vs. Jenova?), and kept with the fairly common mystical/religious undertones that help make the FF series what it is. For someone like Katz (a person who hasn't played any of the games, and is, well, as silly as he is), the story line is either going to seem overly complicated (and thus underexplained) or extremely hokey and childish.

Every FF story is a challenge to read. It is also a challenge to the reader, regarding how one lives their life. I know I'm probably reading too much into this, but the point is that the FF storylines aren't supposed to be just entertaining like Angelina Jolie's tits in Tomb Raider... the storylines of FF games (and movie) make you think. a lot.

Re:I'm going for the CG...period

I'm sorry, but Aki is not Spacey nor Lemmon. This is a fantastic movie for the animation/CG. Taking it superficially as a cinematographical work, it doesn't cut it. As has been stated, you can't make up for true human emotion. The acting is not there either. I know from your previous postings that you thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as did my younger brother. He, as well as you, I assume, are avid RPG players and can involve and indulge yourself in the story of the game/movie. This makes it difficult to review the acting/plot in the big pic. My brother couldn't tell a truly good movie from another blockbuster if his life depended on it, but that's fine. I'd almost wish I could be that way; then I'd be entertained much more than I am when I go to a movie. But I still watch objectively.

I didn't go into this movie with high hopes, because I knew this is the first real attempt at CG acting and it was inevitable that it would fall short of realism, but that's okay. It's the biggest step in the right direction I've seen in a long time. Since Star Wars, perhaps.
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Re:Wow

Near the beginning of the movie I noticed something was wrong with the mouth movement and sound. I thought it might be unsynced but if you really pay attention you'll notice it is lined up just fine. It took me an hour to put my finger on what was wrong. The mouths move perfectly to form the words but the lips never really meet to create the percussive articulation associated with "p", "b", "m", etc. sounds. After a while though, you get used to it and I didn't even notice once I was engrossed in the film.

Steve

Re:Not seen the movie but ...

Why do we have a person reviewing a movie based on a game when that person hasn't ever played the game.

Sorry, but you're full of shit. If this movie were marketed only to people who have played the games, they'd have to charge about $100 per ticket in order to recoup their costs. This movie is being sold to the general public, in standard movie theaters. The producers have an obligation to make the movie comprehensible in its own right, otherwise they deserve criticism (and probable financial ruin).

IIt's all about Anime

If you like Anime, chances are you'll give FF a passing grade. If you're not a big Anime, I'd expect a so-so reaction. I say screw Katz, I want to know what Taco thinks of it.

Re:zerg

Square has promised the shareholders that they will never FINANCE a movie again. They'll gladly make them if somebody else is signing the cheques. :-)

zerg

They call me "Master Cat Herder" cause I managed to get myself and 15 friends to see the movie opening night. Suffice to say that almost everyone hated it. I don't know why, but I was completely floored.

The movie reminded me alot of Heinlein novels... You either love them or hate them, but either way they're an incredible read. And I've yet to find anyone with a middle view... People either said, "AWESOME!" or "WTF is this crap?". No one said, "eh".

People are getting mixed signals though: the GIA is reporting that Square has more films in the works, while at Square's shareholder meeting, the brass apologized profusely by the losses incurred primarily as a result of making the film. IF this was indeed only a test run THEN holy shit we ain't seen nothing yet.

Bottom line: just go see the movie.

Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057

Dear Katz...

Katz, Im not usualy a JonKatz basher but at times like this I really understand them.

One of the first things you mention is that you haven't played the games. If you had you'd have had something to relate to. In the last games (since Vii) they have had lots of _nice_ pre-rendered CG wich has gotten better for each game. Every FF player has probably played with the thought of how this could be made into a movie. And now it is. Most of us compare to the game and the games pre-rendered sequences. And most of us love it. At least what we've seen on the www and on trailers. Many of us will go just for the eye candy. If I wanted real actors, I'd demand real actors. I want to see how much we can do without real actors... And I can't help you with the lipsync. I betcha there will be better syncs on other languages. Or just wait and buy the DVD with english subtitles. Let the fans deside if it's bad - the film is made for them.

You are behaving like a /. reader who hasn't read the article but still has a lot to say about it. Those dudes are irritating...

Cheers...

--
$HOME is where the .*shrc is

At least they tried...

but great news for human actors

Well, at least they tried. What should they do according to you? Keep trying until it's really perfect? In that case you would have to wait quite a few years. But I really think that in a few years time actors *will* have a difficult time, because animation will be a lot better then. Maybe the lead roles will not be played by animated actors, but smaller roles will (especially roles that are too dangerous to play, I think an animated actor/stuntman is a lot cheaper than a real actor).

Re:Aki Nude

and it can be found here [stileproject.com]

Re:I'm going for the CG...period

Actually the characters in the Diablo II cutscenes showed more expression and emotion than in Final Fantasy.

Which is why Final Fantasy was so much better than a Diablo II scene.

In the scene where Aki cries, we don't get a big explosion of obvious, broad emotion. We get a very subtle, quiet shot of her fighting back tears. They moved her face as little as possible while still making it obvious that she was crying.

Actors like Keven Spacey and Jack Lemmon dedicated their whole careers to achieving such understated gestures.

You can have the mad old man in the Diablo II scenes, with all of his gimacing and hand-waving. The animator who drew Aki (each character had their own animator), the rotoscope model actress, and the voice actress should colectively get a "best actress" nomination.

Re:Dear Katz...

The movie was lip synced to English, not Japanese. The Japanese version will be either dubbed or subtitled (with original English dialogue), and will not have Japanese lip sync. Also, Japan will have to wait several months to see the movie, since it was released in the US first.

Just Like Dune, eh?

I absolutely disagree; Final Fantasy was an excellent movie that pushed the boundaries of technology and story telling.

The plot was captivating, even to someone who only has the faintest recollection of the video games: for those who played the games a lot, it was superb. Much like the original production of Dune: if you knew the books, it was one of the best movies made. If you didn't, you were lost. Though in the case of FF, being lost wasn't anywheres as bad as with Dune.

But something that came to my mind while watching it was the format: full CG. It allowed the movie to have special effects that didn't break the mold of the movie. Let me try to explain myself here.

It's like the video game, Metal Gear Solid. MGS never breaks from the format that you play it in: it's a continuous flow of action and graphics that is extremely smooth. The makers didn't break the format to go into "Cinemagraphic Sequences". Everything was in the same mode as game play. This created a suspension of disbelief that never needed to be broken.

It's the same thing with Final Fantasy. Most movies, when special effects are added, LOOK like the effects are, well, ADDED. They are a second layer that is obviously ON TOP of the live action. Not so with FF! Because the ENTIRE movie is animated, the special effects don't have to break with the flow. The result is a movie where neat effects and the actors are lumped together into one unbreakable chain. The movie has a flow to it that you simply CANNOT imitate with live action.

The actors(:) were amazingly smooth (though the opening sequence wasn't as good as I had expected it to be), the effects non-intrusive, the voice-overs excellently done.

It of course does not rival live action (did you expect it to?), but in fifty years, when animation DOES 100% imitate life, people will look back at FF and say that THIS was the true beginning.

Bunch of Lemmings, all of you!

Firts, thanks to Katz for having an opinion that is actually his own and not born of the group mentality every now and then.

I liked the movie myself. Generally disliked the character animations. They reminded me of Blizzard's. Dummies that got a breath of light but didn't oil their joints. The characters were not fluid at all, Mainframe make the Transformers look more fluid than these characters.

But this movie would not have worked at all if it was doen with real actors. The visual effects would have make the real actors seem completely out of place. So even though the characters looked great but moved like the Tin Man, they fit in with the world they inhabited.

The story was so-so. Mad general with loyal following who wants nothing more than to blow stuff up out of revenge, scientests who just know that blowing stuff up will destroy the world.

The main flaw with the story is that they had potential for a deep story, but they took a shallow sweep of a deep lake and only got the very top, freshest, smelliest stuff.

What exactly are the spirits? Life energies? Souls? Some sort of collective? A gift from Gia? Why are there only eight of them? What could you have done with your almost romantic sub plot/comic relief characters if you didn't kill them? Just how mad is this general and why didn't you animate some of his backstory to give him more depth?

Overall, this movie would have been better as say, a one season mini-series. The animation was great, and was the correct choice for the story. I'd give it an average over all. It didn't totally suck, but it didn't live up to what it could have been.

Spirits within? Like booze?

Look if you can't get past your own religion to enjoy a story, then don't go see stories that present different perspectives. The terrible irony is, they gave a scientific explaination for the spirits and gaia. In fact they observationally proved them in the context of the story. You choose to reject this and ask them to present the story with an explaination which would be consistant with the real world we know and love? I hope I got that wrong. I really hope that is not what you mean, and those wild mushrooms I had with the chicken marsala were not what I think they were. Maybe the movie would have been more real if they all sat around eating mac and cheese out of self cooking pouches while they luxuriated watching the erotic clone of Brook Burke Wild Off Earth at the hottest lunar night spots, while their solar powered robomower took care of the grunt work.

Seriously, maybe I took your comment as wrong as I could, but this reminds me of the time I went to see Mulan. During the avalanche scene a teenage girl behind me said, in disgust, "That's so fake." I'm sorry. Was she your sister? If I can find her, should I hook you two up? Maybe you were both lost. Cause in both cases you were in a movie theater, not a documentary theater.

Do you really object to all films that have any kind of an afterlife ingrained in their stories? The list is literally huge, and some are even good. That said, since you're such a staunch proponant of micotargeted entertainment, did it perhaps occur to you that atheists are in the extream minority.

Again I've got no problem with people who object to how a premise of a movie is carried out (as long as they agree with me). By and large I'm all about different strokes for different folks. But you're objecting to the premise of the movie period. Don't go see that movie. What's the point of subjecting yourself to something you know *before hand* you can't enjoy?

The Force. WTF is that crap. Its so unrealistic, they've got pan-galactic travel, you'd think they could come up with a realistic explanation for the Force too. Duh.

Re:I'm going for the CG...period

That's the best way to go, because it felt like a long cut-scene. It was beautiful graphically, but Katz does have some good points:

One, the plot was pretty weak. In most movies, you have the baseline life, followed by a conflict, followed by a search for a remedy to the conflict, which finally climaxes and ends with an epilogue. At least that's the way that we do it in the states. In the FF movie, we start with the baseline and conflict having already been assumed, as well as the search for the remedy. They come in working towards what should be a climax, but since we have nothing to compare it with it doesn't seem like there was a climax. Finally the movie ends with a mellow song, with no explanation of life post-climax. Overall I think that it really reminds me of a lot of the anime that I've seen...pretty to look at, but hard to follow.

Secondly, the "acting." Most of the time the scenes were beautifully done, but you could tell which ones were done by an animater and which ones were done with motion-capture. There is a very obvious difference in the movie. The motion-capture scenes were great. The range of facial expressions were iffy at best. Some of the simpler expressions (like when one of the women gives somebody the "cold shoulder treatment") were very realistic. I actually thought to myself, "Boy have I seen that expression before." Smiles were well done. But the more intense emotions (fear, rage, pain) were not displayed very well at all in their characters, making them seem somewhat...weak. I don't recall seeing the characters really blinking at all, which for some reason gave everything a dream-like quality. It's funny how you don't notice something so commonplace until it is gone.

Overall, I was pleased with the effort. But then I only went to see the technology, not for the story.

Say "NO!" to tax money for religious groups. [thedaythatcounts.org]

Re:"I've never played the game"...

Hmmm... That's an interesting viewpoint. My brother said it was a great movie too, and he's played just as much of the FF game series as I have (I've played through FF3, some of FF4, FF7, & FF9). This may be part of the reason why so many people are ripping the movie for its plot-line. If it IS based on the games closely, then I would expect it to contain the same elements of storytelling, which yes, to the uninitiated seem at first rather boring because of their simplicity, but usually get much more involving once the underlying stories come out.

The only thing I could see being a problem is not enough time in the movie to develop the story fully, as in the FF series which even when played at a breakneck pace, usually takes 20+ hours (and can take 100+ hours going at a more inquisitive, slower pace). But for its technical merits and attempts at 'new things' (60,000+ strands of Aki's hair rendered!!!) I think I'll go see it.

Re:Katz hates it?

Yep, I tend to agree...
JonKatz: "I've never played the game".
Translation: "I have no idea what Final Fantasy is about."

"News flash! JonKatz doesn't like Final Fantasy type of stories!" should have been the body of the article. What am I saying? I am saying this review is exactly like the rest of the KatzRants(tm); overblown, exaggerated, and full of opinionated statements presented as fact.

"give Tomb Raider some credit here"
Two completely different genres here, KatzBoi. "I think Boston speakers suck! Pink Post-It notes are WAY better!", what the heck?

"There is no acting to speak of, and how could there be? There are only disembodied [...] voices"
Hello? Mr. Wizard? You slam a movie that was rendered by computers for having "only voices"? Whew, the stink is getting stronger the longer your mouth is open. The voice acting was just that; voice acting.

"The overall affect is cold and fake."
An angry military officer, whose family was wiped out by the phantoms, has become so blinded in his rage that he is willing to do anything to get revenge...
A young scientist's apprentice, infected by a horror who's details are not known, is tossed about between finding an answer to defeat the enemy, romance, and the knowledge that her own time grows very short... Etc.
So, Katz has a heart of granite. Big suprise.

"the plot is just stupid, a loopy, quasi-religious narrative that posits that aliens landed on the earth [, ...] gobbled up most of its people and cities, for reasons that are never explained, and for that matter, are apparently inexplicable."
To anyone who has seen the movie and posesses an IQ of 80 or more, this is, for lack of a worse word, utter bulls#it. I can see how Katz did not understand the plot, though.

"Final Fantasy is bad news for moviegoers"
This is a matter of opinion. Here's another matter of opinion: JonKatz needs an icepick lobotomy.