Grade: B-

Verdict: Great animation, third-rate plot, but it still appeals to the geek within.

Details: With the voices of Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland. Directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence. One hour, 46 min.

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Review: Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They're known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Swollen nightmares from a petri dish, they're the kind of grotesque whatsits horror writer H.P. Lovecraft would have kept as pets in his basement.

And as the villains of “Fantasy,” they unfortunately have more character than the heroes.

This latest video-game-to-big-screen adaptation doesn't go the live-action route, like the recent “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.” Instead, it's a computer-animated feature, one that swaps the sunny tones of “Shrek” and “Toy Story” for a darker palette . . . literally and emotionally. The movie is a visual stunner whose dreamscape images almost make up for its cardboard characters and B-movie dialogue.

Set in the future, 34 years after a meteorite crashed in the Caspian Mountains unleashing Phantoms on the world, “Fantasy” first introduces us to Dr. Aki Ross (voice of Ming-Na) as she explores the off-limits Old New York City. She's sifting through the dark ruins in search of eight ingredients for her “wave theory,” which she hopes will destroy this, ahem, Phantom menace.

She's ultimately aided by a team of alien fighters, a multicultural crew that seems to be modeled on the Marines of “Aliens.” They're led by Aki's old flame Gray, a character who looks like a beefed-up Ben Affleck but speaks with Alec Baldwin's voice. (For that matter, Aki looks like a genetic splicing of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Connelly, though as an “actress” she's weaker than either of them.)

Aki has a secret incentive to create the alien-eliminating wave. It's also why she keeps having the same dream of an unknown world and its apocalypse, which might be the key to figuring out exactly what the Phantoms are. Meanwhile, the team is racing for time against General Hein. If you can't tell by his name that he's evil, or by the ominous, Nazi-like uniform he wears, here's a final clue: career baddy James Woods provides the voice.

With a $137 million budget (that's bigger than “Pearl Harbor”), “Final Fantasy” creates an apocalyptic, doom-struck tone akin to that other Japanese form of animation, anime. It's very Asian in its fusion of science and mysticism, with a whole pile of techno-jargon that can bog down what's basically a simple fable. Even when it doesn't make much sense, director Hironobu Sakaguchi brings a commitment to the scenes that transcends the wobbly script.

As for the animation, the two-legged characters are probably the most realistic humans ever mapped by computer. But for now, members of the Screen Actors Guild don't need to feel threatened. At best, the animated characters come off like really buff, stiff-acting TV actors, a couple of whom sound like A-list movie stars, including Donald Sutherland providing the voice for Aki's mentor, Dr. Sid.

While the progress in animation “reality” is impressive, the characters sometimes suffer a kind of weightlessness; the animators may have finessed the human form, but not the effect of gravity on it. (Aki's hair often floats around her face as if it were a live thing.)

That's not a problem for the aliens. They don't pay attention to gravity or physics. They're things of creepy beauty, “spirits within” that are likely to tickle your geek within.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service