30 Video Games Made into Movies (For Better or Worse)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) Dir: Hironobu Sakaguchi

We tend to laugh at a lot of early computer-generated effects when we look back on them, and while the CGI in The Spirits Within is unmistakably dated, it’s hard not to appreciate how amazing it looked at the time. Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a “technical milestone.” The impressive qualities didn’t end with the effects either.

The film had a top-notch voice cast including of Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Donald Sutherland, and Steve Buscemi. The lead role of Aki Ross was voiced by Ming-Na Wen, who most probably know as Agent Melinda May on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the television counterpart to Marvel’s cinematic universe.

However, you can’t win them all. The film’s critical reaction was mixed at best, it failed to make back its budget by a healthy margin, and its computer-generated lead character was voted one of the sexiest women of 2001 by Maxim and its readers. I don’t consider that a win.