Unknown Soldier
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I'm pretty sure I haven't watched this film since it was released back in 2001, and now that I've watched it again out of curiosity I'm pretty sure I remember why now.
It has been released multiple times on home media, including this most recent release on 4K UHD Blu-ray with HDR grading. The original film was a significant technological accomplishment back at the turn of the 21st century, but today it's a 4K upscale of a movie originally rendered at around 900p resolution with asset quality which was characteristic of its day. To put it bluntly as possible, it has not aged well at all technically. I think my PS5 is able to render in realtime with better quality than this film looks. It doesn't look bad or anything, but today it's no better than your average video game cutscene in appearance.
In terms of its legacy, well today the film has to stand on something other than it's technical merits, and let's just say this movie bombed for a reason. It is basically a deeply boring and nearly incoherent 1 hour and 45 minutes long Final Fantasy video game cutscene. Despite its relatively short length, it felt much longer than it actually was because of how boring it is. The script is awful, the dialogue is awful, and the voice acting is wooden and awful. Alec Baldwin actually put his best foot forward as the male lead, but Ming-Na sounded like she was reading the script and bored to tears while internally laughing at the garbage she was reading off the script pages. I don't know who thought this story was a good idea but I hope it wasn't Hironobu Sakaguchi because I can't imagine what he was thinking with this one.
This movie ultimately cost so much and bombed so badly that it not only bankrupted Square Pictures after only 1 film, it financially destroyed the parent company Squaresoft which is what forced the merger to create the modern company Square Enix in Japan. Suffice it to say that it was not worth it. This movie sucked on almost every imaginable level, and honestly the script would be rejected and laughed at if it were proposed for a Final Fantasy video game. To actually have spent the kind of money they did on making it into a movie is astounding levels of hubris.
Anyways, this one can go back into a forgotten memory. I'm glad I only wasted 1 hour and 45 minutes on this film.
It has been released multiple times on home media, including this most recent release on 4K UHD Blu-ray with HDR grading. The original film was a significant technological accomplishment back at the turn of the 21st century, but today it's a 4K upscale of a movie originally rendered at around 900p resolution with asset quality which was characteristic of its day. To put it bluntly as possible, it has not aged well at all technically. I think my PS5 is able to render in realtime with better quality than this film looks. It doesn't look bad or anything, but today it's no better than your average video game cutscene in appearance.
In terms of its legacy, well today the film has to stand on something other than it's technical merits, and let's just say this movie bombed for a reason. It is basically a deeply boring and nearly incoherent 1 hour and 45 minutes long Final Fantasy video game cutscene. Despite its relatively short length, it felt much longer than it actually was because of how boring it is. The script is awful, the dialogue is awful, and the voice acting is wooden and awful. Alec Baldwin actually put his best foot forward as the male lead, but Ming-Na sounded like she was reading the script and bored to tears while internally laughing at the garbage she was reading off the script pages. I don't know who thought this story was a good idea but I hope it wasn't Hironobu Sakaguchi because I can't imagine what he was thinking with this one.
This movie ultimately cost so much and bombed so badly that it not only bankrupted Square Pictures after only 1 film, it financially destroyed the parent company Squaresoft which is what forced the merger to create the modern company Square Enix in Japan. Suffice it to say that it was not worth it. This movie sucked on almost every imaginable level, and honestly the script would be rejected and laughed at if it were proposed for a Final Fantasy video game. To actually have spent the kind of money they did on making it into a movie is astounding levels of hubris.
Anyways, this one can go back into a forgotten memory. I'm glad I only wasted 1 hour and 45 minutes on this film.
