If memory serves me right, I went to see this movie in theaters in 2001. I may have dragged my mom or brother with me. What can I say, I was curious and it looked weird!
This famously unsuccessful CGI story was weird then and its weird now. Directed by the creator of the video game, Hironobu Sakaguchi, it took over 2 years to animate at an estimated 200 years of effort by a large team of animators working around the clock. It went overbudget, it was riding a wave of unspecified anxiety about what it was, and then it came out and lost an estimated 95 million dollars and folded Square as a film production company.
Rewatching this today, as perhaps the third time I've seen it, I remember a lot about the film when it came out and my perception. Basically, I think there were multiple reasons for this as a failure but one of the major reasons comes down to that it is not that interesting of a story, that doesn't have clear resolution or clarity at all really. I could not tell you what really happens in this movie.
Bare bones of the plot are that there is this invading ghostly race of aliens called Phantoms which are deadly and dangerous and now on Earth post a meteoric strike. A team of Aki Ross, a bunch of soldiers, and an old scientist are on the case, especially once it's revealed that Aki is actually infected with the alien presence somehow, and it is contained within her; her being the first to survive such an encounter. Now they have to collect spirits or something from all over in order to stop the aliens...I guess.
The CGI characters are well rendered, and the entire affair is a fun little romp, it just gets buried in the plot of it all, which I really couldn't tell ya about. I like this movie more than most, but I will admit it is definitely not like, good, or anything. I'll give it 2.5.
No comments:
Post a Comment