Box office Before the film's release, there was already skepticism of its potential to be financially successful. Chris Taylor from
Time magazine noted that video game adaptations had a poor track record at the box office and that it was Sakaguchi's first feature film. and was released in the United States on July 11, where it made $11.4 million during its opening weekend, ranking in fourth place behind
Legally Blonde,
The Score and
Cats & Dogs. The film would end up making $32 million in North America The film grossed $85 million in worldwide box office receipts, 1,456,523 tickets were sold in France, 4,299,604 tickets in other European countries The film achieved average to poor results at the box office in most of Southeast Asia; however, it performed well in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea; 160,100 tickets were sold in
Seoul City. In 2006,
Boston.com regarded it as the 4th
biggest box office bomb, estimating the film's losses at the end of its cinema run at over $94 million.
Critical reception Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within holds an approval rating of 44% on
Rotten Tomatoes based on 144 reviews, with an average rating of 5.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The movie raises the bar for computer-animated movies, but the story is dull and emotionally removed".
Metacritic, which uses a
weighted average, gives the film a score of 49 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by
CinemaScore on opening night gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times was a strong advocate of the film; he gave it 3½ stars out of four, praising it as a "technical milestone". While having some minor criticism of the plot, he concluded the reason to see the film was "simply, gloriously, to look at it", especially praising the realism in Aki's face. He also expressed a desire for the film to succeed in hopes of seeing others made in its image, though he was skeptical of its ability to be accepted.
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian echoed concerns about the plot, describing it as "adequate" though also stating it quickly slipped into cliché. He also had high praise for the animation in general, though lamented that the character's faces did not look quite real enough. Writing in a 2007 article about the
uncanny valley, John Mangan from
The Age cited character's eyes in the film as an example of this phenomenon, where attempts to create realistic humans unintentionally cause revulsion;
Peter Travers from
Rolling Stone said that it was enjoyable watching the characters at first, "but then you notice a coldness in the eyes, a mechanical quality in the movements".
Nell Minow from
Common Sense Media also expressed concerns about realism in the characters, describing the visuals as stunning overall but finding subtle issues with characters talking and acting. Describing the dialogue as "passable", Nell also said the script read like a reject from
Pokémon, and that its "confusing gibberish about the earth's spirit [would] not do justice to the beliefs of environmentalists or
pantheists".
Todd McCarthy from
Variety gave a positive review, praising the voice work and visuals though saying the characters were no more emotionally expressive than those in traditional animation. McCarthy described the acting as "no worse" than the majority of science-fiction films, also saying that as far as
video game adaptation films went,
The Spirits Within "sure beats
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider".
Reception of Aki Ross Aki's appearance was received positively by critics, with praise for the finer details of the character model such as the rendering of her hair.
Entertainment Weekly named Aki an "
it girl", stating that "calling this action heroine a cartoon would be like calling a
Rembrandt a doodle". Ruth La Ferla from
The New York Times described her as having the "sinewy efficiency" of
Alien franchise character
Ellen Ripley and visual appeal of
Julia Roberts' portrayal of
Erin Brockovich. The same image of her appeared in the "Babes: The Girls of Sci Fi" special issue of
SFX.
Legacy and related media The merger between
Square and
Enix, which had been under consideration since at least 2000 according to
Yasuhiro Fukushima, Enix chairman at the time, was delayed because of the failure of the film and Enix's hesitation at merging with a company that had just lost a substantial amount of money. Square Pictures was closed in late January 2002, largely due to the commercial failure of
The Spirits Within. In 2011,
BioWare art director Derek Watts cited
The Spirits Within as a major influence on the successful
Mass Effect series of
action role-playing games. In the first episode of the Square Enix-published 2015 video game
Life Is Strange, when the lead character interacts with a TV, she mentions the idea of watching the film, and says "I don't care what anybody says, that's one of the best sci-fi films ever made". Although the film was loosely based on a video game series, there were never any plans for a game adaptation of the film itself. Sakaguchi indicated the reason for this was the lack of powerful gaming hardware at the time, feeling the graphics in any game adaptation would be far too much of a step down from the graphics in the film itself.
Accolades The film won the "Jury Prize" at the 2002
Japan Media Arts Festival. It was nominated for "Best Sound Editing – Animated Feature Film, Domestic and Foreign" at the 49th
Golden Reel Awards as well as "
Best Animated Feature" at the 5th
Online Film Critics Society awards. Conversely, the film was also nominated in the worst screenplay category at the
2001 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, but lost to
Pearl Harbor. The film's trailer was nominated for the "Golden Fleece" award at the 3rd
Golden Trailer Awards.
Home media A two-disc
DVD version of the film was released on October 23, 2001, with the
Blu-ray edition released on August 7, 2007. Two weeks before it was released the DVD version was listed on
Amazon.com as one of the most-anticipated releases, and it was expected to recoup some of the money lost on the film's disappointing box office performance. The DVD was initially a top seller; in February 2002, Jun Aida said that while sales were still strong, they were not good enough to save Square Pictures from closing. Both versions contained two full-length commentary tracks (one featuring Motonori Sakakibara, sequence supervisor Hiroyuki Hayashida, lead artist Tatsuro Maruyama, and creature supervisor Takoo Noguchi; the second featuring animation director Andy Jones, editor Chris S. Capp, and staging director Tani Kunitake) as well as an isolated score with commentary. They also contained a version of the film in its basic CGI and sketch form, with the option of pop-up comments on the film. An
easter egg shows the cast of the film re-enacting the dance from ''
Michael Jackson's Thriller''. Fifteen featurettes, including seven on character biographies, three on vehicle comparisons and an interactive "Making Of" featurette, were also included. Other features included Aki's dream viewable as a whole sequence, the film's original opening sequence, and intentional
outtakes. As of December 2001, the film grossed in
video rental revenue in the United States, equivalent to 83.4% of its box office gross in the country. The DVD was nominated for "Best DVD Special Edition Release" at the 28th
Saturn Awards. Aaron Beierle from
DVD Talk gave a positive review of the DVD, rating it 4½ out of 5 stars for audio quality, video quality and special features. Dustin Somner from
Blu-ray.com gave the Blu-ray version 5 out of 5 stars for video quality and special features, and 4½ stars for audio quality. Peter Bracke gave the Blu-ray version 4 out of 5 stars overall. Sony made the film available for free on the YouTube channel Throwback Toons on December 5, 2023. ==References==