"Family Guy" and "Final Fantasy"...

[Anthonynotes]

Neither of these particularly positive....
Yep, watched "Family Guy"s "triumphant" return to the airwaves tonight, and it's probably just as "stellar" (or actually, probably *worse*) than what we all remember....I counted: cocaine drug abuse (Brian the dog, while working as a police narcotics dog, gets hooked on the stuff), enough tacky gay jokes that required *both* hands' fingers to keep track of, the "Family Guy" father, Peter, in his usual "jerk*****"-squared mode, and finally, an "appearance" by Rocky the Flying Squirrel (obviously, as fanfic fans know, "Rocky" here clearly must've been recycled stock footage being used for "Family Guy" and Stewie's own sinister ends ;-) And there's part two coming up next week (and from the plot description I read, it sounds like as big a doozy as this one)...

Finally, there's "Final Fantasy": a local weekly newspaper here in town reviewed the film, but didn't give it a very favorable review (then again, he gave "Legally Blond" three stars)...here's the link:
http://www.nuvo.net/film/071201_film_a.html

-B.

[James Harvey]

I also watched Family Guy and, well, it sucked. Aside from the bad pacing, the vast majority of the jokes fell flat and I could barely stand the main character, Peter. The dog, yes, was good, but the rest of the cast are either flat, dull, not funny, or a combination of all the above. I give the 'return' of FG a solid D-. I won't be tuning in for Part 2.

[Anthonynotes]

Originally posted by DickGrayson
I also watched Family Guy and, well, it sucked. Aside from the bad pacing, the vast majority of the jokes fell flat and I could barely stand the main character, Peter. The dog, yes, was good, but the rest of the cast are either flat, dull, not funny, or a combination of all the above. I give the 'return' of FG a solid D-. I won't be tuning in for Part 2.

Well, that summed up FG even *before* it left the airwaves (let alone last night's "return") :-)

-B.
Who wonders if, even despite Brian, "D-" might be too generous ;-)

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Final Fantasy is basically being labelled as an "interesting failure" by most mainstream critics, AFAICT. Internet reaction is mixed, but leaning more towards the negative. A lot of the complaints are about the "lifelessness" of the characters, both in writing and animation. Word is that the graphics come close to duplicating realism at times, but the characters seem a bit stiff.

Also complaints about bad dialogue, slow pacing, etc,.

[Harley]

Just saw Final Fantasy the other day. I at least want to start out positive before ripping into it.

The graphics? It's absolutely gorgeous. I'd like to say, "Nice special effects", but the entire movie is computer generated. While I could've mistaken a few scenes for live action, not everything was on that same level.

Some of the physics seemed off. Aki's hair, for instance, never quite moved the right way and was always a little too perfect. The last thing I really noticed about the graphics was that occasionally you'd see what you usually see more often with computer animation... the movement of a character would jerk in an unnatural manner for a moment.

The plot? It's a bit out there. Very metaphysical. But still cool, IMO. Without ruining it entirely, it seems somewhat FF7 in a way. The only character that's named that has appeared in the FF Series of games is Cid. In the same type of role every Cid plays, the smart engineer, advisor sort.

The dialogue? Pretty bad. I could predict what they were going to say seconds before. When I couldn't predict what they were going to say next, it was too inane for me to have come up with on my own.

I wish they'd stop using big name actors for the voices. It never turns out quite right. In fact, it was downright laughable at certain points in the movie. Some of the voices, like Steve Buscemi's character were just annoying. His timing was off. His jokes always seemed to come a second later than would actually allow them to be funny.

The synch was also slightly off. The voices never seemed to come from the characters. The lips movements and the voices never quite matched. It's a minor thing, but still, little things like that do take away from a movie.

The soundtrack? Right up until the very last song, I could dig it. I really could. And then they have to go and put on a song reminiscent of the Japanese pop style. It just didn't fit. Not one bit. And to be honest, it would've been much cooler of Nobuo Uematsu had composed the music anyway.

Overall? As hyped up as it was, I went in only expecting it to look pretty. The movie accomplished that much. So I wasn't amazingly disappointed with the results.

I think the movie can be summed up with two things said by others in the audience. The first said by a random woman in the audience. The final song had just started playing and some random woman in the audience yelled out, "Oh haaaaaaiiil no!!!!". If you watched the movie, you'd feel the same way. The other was said by my friends astute younger brother, "Maybe they should stick to video games." It's worth seeing based on how pretty it is, but don't go in expecting anything more than that.

[Anthonynotes]

...this one a high-rated (three and a half stars IIRC) from Roger Ebert,who usually seems to like films with visual/special effects/detailed animation, even if the plot's not the best.:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...ftr-rog11.html

-B.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

Originally posted by Brainatra
...this one a high-rated (three and a half stars IIRC) from Roger Ebert,who usually seems to like films with visual/special effects/detailed animation, even if the plot's not the best.:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...ftr-rog11.html

-B.

If it's animation, Ebert automatically gives it an extra star. He really is soft on cartoons. 90% of his cartoon reviews are on the favourable side, and even the bad ones get some sympathy.