04:07 pm - [Movie Review] Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Hellraiser: Inferno
Another early movie-watching morning here in the Squid Lair. And we go for diversity, yes we do.
- Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
The funny thing about this movie is I really, really enjoyed it. The animation is high caliber, the voice acting is fascinatingly good, for the most part (with high points provided by Alec Baldwin and Donald Southerlin, who'd have thunk it, and honourable mention to Steve Buscemi who was, as ever, playing the same character he always does). If the animation has any real technical shortfall right now, it's not in texturing or lighting, its that the material objects don't seem to have enough "heft" for their motion. It's still a bit languid and floaty. Even so, there were some bits with the armoured guys running that really hit the look dead on, and we even had the precursor to Halo's Warthog and its floaty suspension.
The story is pure Square Soft, but that was exactly what I expected. In fact, if anything the level of nature-worship and "war is bad, OK"-ness was dialed way back from what I expected. Though I was kind of disturbed at Dr Sid --- not only because there's a Cid in every Square FF title ever, somewhere, but because he was smart enough to build a bio-ethereal technology based on resonant waves of spiritual energy, but not smart enough to figure out, "Hey, this'll sell better if I just keep it scientific and stop referring to Gaia, but instead 'the holistic resonant harmonic of all bio-ethereal energy on the planet'." Duh.
Still, damn fun, great eye candy, and I really enjoyed it. Bravo Square, even if I was the only one.
This gets a solid A.
- Hellraiser: Inferno
If you liked the original Hellraiser, if you've followed the Raiserverse and know how many pins are in Pinhead's head, you'll like this movie. If you like close, atmospheric, intense supernatural/crime dramas, you'll like this movie. If you're me, you'll like this movie. Forget Cenobites that shoot CDs out their mouth or bizarre bloated doctors with hoses out their heads, Inferno goes right back to the guts and glory of Barker's work and focuses on one man and his interaction with Hell.
The really odd thing, though, is that the actor in the lead, Craig Sheffer, is a dead spitting image for General Hein in The Spirits Within; they very well could be digital and flesh twin brothers. That, frankly, was more than a little creepy. But it doesn't change the fact that this is an entirely excellent film with good pacing, elegant structure, and a real understanding of how to put together a Hellraiser pic.
A+, and I want my own Lament Configuration.
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/goth_boy/happy.gif){kind=small}
impressed