Final Fantasy

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * )

This was made to be watched at home. The first entirely computer-generated movie — from the "actors" to the "sets" and, some might say, even the "plot" — plays much better in the lounge than in a cinema.
Many movies are made for home entertainment (no, not those ones); in fact, more movies go straight to video than appear in cinemas. With all the extras on the disc (see panel right), it's easy to see that Final Fantasy has been made for the teenage boy who has a DVD player and a surround-sound system in his living room.
Dr Aki Ross (voice: Ming Na) is a female scientist in the year 2065 when Earth has been overrun by extraterrestrial phantoms from a crashed meteor. Humans have been pushed back to cities with barriers that keep the marauding space monsters away, but time is running out.
Ross, fatally infected by a phantom, her mentor Dr Sid (Donald Sutherland) and the Deep Eyes military squad under Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) hunt out information to destroy the invaders. General Hein (James Woods) would rather destroy the aliens; unfortunately that would take out Earth as well.
Sound like your teenager's computer game? You got it.

Video rental: Out now

DVD sales: Out now

* DVD features: Disc 1 — audio commentary with Motonori Sakakibara (co-director), Hiroyuki Hayashida (sequence supervisor), Tatsuro Maruyama (sets and props lead artist), Takao Noguchi (phantom supervisor); and with Andy Jones (animation director), Chris S. Capp (editor), Tani Kunitake (staging director); trailers; isolated score with commentary by composer Elliot Goldenthal; storyboard/Playblast selects of the film with optional filmmaker commentary or subtitled factoids; interactive features; interactive animated menus; scene selection with motion images; text/photo galleries; production notes. Disc 2 — The Making Of Final Fantasy interactive documentary featuring music video; alternate opening sequence; Aki's Dream mini-movie; face wraps; character morphs; shuffler film editor; compositing builds; vehicle scale comparisons; character files; matte-art exploration; sets and props. DVD-Rom features — complete screenplay; virtual tour of Square Pictures; screensaver and web links.