Not a Spielburg, but this is still a great movie. The first of its kind.

If you go into this thinking it'll be just like the video games then you'll come away disappointed. This is just about the only movie based on a vid game that doesn't follow the same story, however, it does create the same feeling (or close enough to it) you get while playing it’s counter-part.

The story goes that in the future, the Leonid meteor struck Earth, but along with it came a race of hostile aliens (known as Phantoms) that human beings are virtually defenseless against. Now, many years later, all of humanity is living in "Barrier Cities" that were set up around the major cities, while the Phantoms have free roam of the Earth.
From this point on the story follows a military group known as the "Deep Eyes" as well as Doctor Aki Ross (the star). They are attempting to find a way to defeat the Phantoms before the movie's bad guy is given permission to use a more severe method, which Aki and her mentor Dr. Sid believe could be fatal to the Earth, to defeat the Phantoms.
The story, I thought was pretty good. While it isn't a Spielburg, it is a great concept with a great ending. The Final Fantasy influence really shows heavily, this also contributes to the quality of music, Final Fantasy always has brilliant music. But this isn't to say it follows the same type of story, no, Final Fantasy stories are far to grand to be able to stuff one into a movie, unless you wanted to make it four hours long, or a trilogy, or something. But, this is the one and only game based movie that takes itself seriously, rather than making a mockery of the games industry, and actually makes a stab at creating something of quality. And they succeeded.

Since this is a CG (computer generated) film, the majority of scrutiny will be placed on the visuals, but fear not, they withstand every test you can throw at them and still come away sparkling! The world that surrounds the actors (it's easier to refer to them as that) is really seamless, it looks real, I don't think there's any higher praise you can give it than that. Everything from decaying New York skyscrapers to tiny dust particles floating through the air in a desert wasteland is done with such minute detail that many times it's hard to believe they did it in a computer.
Then there's the characters themselves, they're flat out amazing, and interestingly enough, Aki isn't the best animated. Her mentor Dr. Sid has every wrinkle, every hair, every subtle expression that you would expect from an aging scientist; he is by far the most realistic. Also, whoever did his voice (I care not to know who) did a fantastic job, it's just perfect. All the other characters, while not up to the same standard, are still incredibly life-like, and by the end of the film you will (or at least I did) forget that they're just a bunch of pixels in a computer and start to think of them as real human beings.

This is the first movie of its kind, a CG movie that tries to be as real as a normal one. Even if you don't like Final Fantasy games, even if you don't like CG movies, even if you don't like science fiction this is worth checking out. With Squaresoft saying there won't be another due to bad sales (where were you when it was in theaters?) we may never see it's like again for a very long time. It's worth seeing just for the sheer experience of it.