Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 2001

Mike Antonucci, San Jose Mercury News: A movie that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: 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. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Digital technology allows man to create man in his own image with greater sophistication than ever before, and the 'man' he creates is a bore. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: Like Dr. Ross and her companions, the movie artfully mimics life without ever truly living. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: Has the stolidness of a video game, from which it is derived. Read more

Melanie McFarland, Seattle Times: Optically stunning, emotionally cold. Read more

Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Great animation, third-rate plot, but it still appeals to the geek within. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: The sight of these characters getting romantic is about as involving as watching two expensive mannequins kissing in a Macy's window. Read more

Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader: I never stopped marveling at the thousands of individually delineated pores and hair strands of the heroine, but the thin story covering her acquisition of one wave after another while narrowly escaping death time and again is strictly for player one. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: The too-smooth skin, the too-tidy hair, the slightly wooden way the characters move -- all of the elements that nudge them from the realm of the ordinary -- only serve to heighten the sense that everything on screen deserves our utmost attention. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A mesmerizing technical achievement. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Narratively, thematically, this is a dismissible picture, just another in a long and forgettable line of silly action flicks. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: At least the movie tries not to come across like a video game that you can't play. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Fast-paced and highly watchable. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A technical milestone. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: After you're done marveling at the characters' semirealistic way of moving and the freckles and minor imperfections that dot their skin ... it's all too easy to get hung up on the things that make them seem clumsy and awkward. Read more

Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle: Sooner or later, viewers have to ask themselves: If they were to do this film with live actors, would it be worth seeing? Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: The human figure, however, remains a challenge to current CGI technology, since the detailing of hair and freckles, for instance, proves rather more credible than the marionette-like impression created by cold eyes and oddly unconvincing body movements. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Moviegoers accustomed to Hollywood action probably won't find this contemplative adventure so appealing. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: This bigscreen adaptation of the long-popular interactive computer game is visually impressive if not dramatically cool, and is marked by "acting" that is no worse than that found in the majority of sci-fi films. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: The exercise is so elaborately pointless you'd think the Pentagon had bankrolled it. Read more