There was a time movies were inspired by literature, plays, historical events and news stories. Now movies are the children of comic books and video games.

The latest entry in this dubious pantheon is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within an off-shoot of the popular Japanese interactive games Final Fantasy.

The appeal of video games is that they allow fans to participate in the story.

The movies based on the games simply ask the viewer to sit back and observe.

In the distant future, earth has been invaded by a ghostly alien force that is draining both humans and the planet itself of their life forces or souls.

The kindly scientist Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) theorizes if he can find all nine elements of Earth's spirit and recombine them, it will give the Earth the power to ward off the aliens.

He sends out his assistant Aki Ross (Ming-Na) to find these elements before it is too late for Earth and for her. Aki is aided in her quest by her former lover Captain Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his elite mercenaries known as The Deep Eyes (Peri Gilpin, Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames).

As a feature film, it ranks right up there with Titan A.E. and Atlantis for logic and an ability to compel.

However, The Spirits Within has a gimmick that almost compensates for all the philosophical claptrap.

The computer animation strives for photo realism. The human characters in The Spirits Within are made to look and act as human as possible. The effect is eerily amazing.

But the dead give-away are the eyes.

The closer the cameras get to the eyes, the more obvious there are no souls.

The bouncy little characters in Shrek have more real life and essence than these imitation humans. It couldn't be a more fitting lesson for the creators of a film about a search for the spirit within.

They still have a long way to go before the achieve their goal of replacing or even replicating humanity. (More on: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within).

(This film is rated PG)

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