directed by Takeshi Nozue
written by Hajime Tabata
In 2001, Sony Pictures released Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an ambitious, purely motion-capture animated film that was intended to usher in a new era of animated films, riding on the popularity of the Final Fantasy video games, even though the film itself had nothing to do with the storyline of those games. The era never took off, though, as the film flopped at the international box office and was largely seen as the reason why the studio that made it, Square Pictures, went bankrupt.
Since then, rather than continue to venture into feature-length animated films designed for a wide audience, Square Enix, the video game developers who effectively absorbed Square Pictures, have used the feature film as a marketing platform for the aforementioned Final Fantasy video game. They did it in 2005 with the release of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and have done it yet again with Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV.
Kingsglaive is set in the fictional world of Eos, in which the Kingdom of Niflheim has conquered just about every other nation or kingdom in the world save for the Kingdom of Lucis, with which it is currently at war. While the royal city of Insomnia remains under the protection of a magical force field, the remainder of the territories of Lucis are under constant attack. Among those fighting to protect Lucis are the king's loyal elite guard, the Kingsglaive. After a battle in one of Lucis' territories results in heavy losses for the kingdom, Niflheim sends its Chancellor Ardyn Izunia to offer a truce to Lucis' king, Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII (voiced Sean Bean, one of the three known actors in this production) under which Lucis will cede all of its territories beyond the city of Insomnia to Niflheim in exchange for peace. Then there's the bit about Lucis' prince Noctis, supposedly an important character but one never seen onscreen, marrying the princess Lunafreya (Lena Headey). In any case, the Kingsglaive, many of whom come from homes outside the city, feel betrayed by their king, with the exception of Nyx (Aaron Paul), who remains loyal and determined to protect the king as the day of signing the truce approaches. The problem, though, is that, as is usually the case, things are not what they seem.
After failing to appeal to broad audiences with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, I guess it makes some sense that Square Enix crafted this film exclusively for fans of the FF games, but watching this film it still irked me that its makers apparently couldn't be bothered to tell the story a little more effectively for the rest of us. There's a perfunctory bit of exposition at the beginning of the film for the uninitiated, but really, the filmmakers basically just drop the viewer into the thick of things without really demonstrating why one should really care what happens to any of these characters. There's a story here, but the writer didn't really feel obligated to tell it.
What was even more grating than the underdeveloped story, though, was the cringe-inducing dialogue and voice-acting. Basically, apart from Paul, Bean and Headey, just about every other performer in the film is either not an actor by profession (several of them appeared to be animators), or not a very good actor at all. Several of the scenes without the three leads were somewhat painful to listen to, and even the leads themselves seemed to be struggling with some of the leaden dialogue. One actor who particularly grated on me was the Chancellor of Niflheim, whose acting was easily the most overdone of all them.
There is no denying that this movie is utterly gorgeous to behold, but really, the filmmakers seemed to forget their first job was to tell a story. Not only that, but the action which was supposed to be a major selling point of this film had a distinctly muddled, chaotic look that makes the much-maligned quick-cut, shaky-cam action of many Hollywood blockbusters look as clear as day. Also, some of the rather silly character designs significantly diminished the otherwise striking photo-realism of the characters, like the utterly absurd design of the Chancellor, who looked like he had a plastic wing strapped to one arm, and the generic anime design of Lunafreya. For heaven's sake, they got the gorgeous Lena Headey to appear in their movie, one would think they could have gotten permission to incorporate at least some of her striking features into the character. Paul's and Bean's characters are less distracting, but for the mullet that Nyx sports, though personally I was struck by how much Nyx resembled former Walking Dead actor Jon Bernthal.
One writer said it quite well; this entire experience is basically one long "cutscene;" it never quite feels like an actual movie. I'd probably be kinder to it if I had seen it on television (where the resolution would no doubt have been better), secure in the knowledge that I had not paid to sit sit through it, but, well, I didn't.
3.5/10
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