(non-spoiler review)
Fantastic Four is Marvel’s latest venture in bringing comics to life. You would have to have been on your own space station for months to have avoided all the media hype for this movie. If the critics are to be believed this is one of the worst films made this year if not ever. My personal feelings are that the media blitz surrounding this movie soured many of the critics before they ever saw it. Sometimes I think the professional critics’ heads are harder than the Things! (a pet peeve: our local KC star critic misattributed a line to one of the characters using it as an example of the character being stupid…one would hope that if you’re getting paid to write a two paragraph movie review that you could at least get your facts right!)
Fantastic Four is a fun movie and it is fantastic in its own way. It is not the one star stinker that many would have you believe nor is it a four star blockbuster. It is a fun summer movie, not without its problems, that introduces the world to these classic Marvel characters. In looking at the Marvel films over the last few years it appears that the successful formula is to have the first movie be primarily about setting up the characters with a brief action sequence towards the end of the movie (X-Men and Spiderman are perfect examples) and then move into a more action intensive formula for the sequel. I think in part that Daredevil and the Hulk were less well received because they did not follow this formula, at least not in the same way. Fantastic Four feels very much like X-Men and Spiderman. It is not as good as those two movies but all in all it was a very enjoyable film. It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that you’ve seen the greater part of the action sequences if you’ve seen the trailer. What you don’t see in the trailer is what is at the heart of this movie: the past relationships that each of these characters has had with each other and the way circumstances force them to form a much deeper bond with one another. This movie is about setting up just who the Fantastic Four are and I liked it that way.
I was not disappointed with any of the actors chosen for this movie. Ioan Gruffudd, a relative unknown to me, was great as Reed Richards. I enjoyed the romance between Richards and Sue Storm, played by Jessica Alba. I read some heavy criticism of her acting in this role but I thought she did a fine job and had good chemistry with the other actors. Chris Evans was very fun as The Human Torch and, as always, Michael Chiklis was excellent.
Chiklis’ performance as the Thing was fantastic enough that it takes away from the fact that his Thing outfit isn’t the best that today’s cutting edge technology has to offer regarding costuming and effects.
I’ve heard several criticisms of the effects for this movie. Again I thought they were fine. If compared to the effects in War of the Worlds or Spiderman 2 they do pale in comparison but they are still very good and in no way detracted from the experience for me. The Human Torch effects are simply amazing!
I don’t know if Fantastic Four will have enough success to garner a sequel but I’m really hoping that the formula pays off for Marvel and that they do. I had a basic knowledge of the characters before hand and after seeing this I would definitely enjoy seeing them be further developed in a subsequent film.
This is another fun summer popcorn flick made more fun for me since I’m a comic book geek. A little action, some romance, good special effects and comic book goodness…hey, that’s a formula that gets no complaints from me!
This is too weird. I just got online and under entertainment news is a review of this movie. It got 1 out of 4 stars. It does look a little campy but I’ll see it. Not on a date night, though. I’m stilled a little miffed about wotw. I’m getting a daredevil vibe here, maybe there’s a cameo of Ben. We can only hope. He could of replaced Cruise on wotw. What do you think?
Heh-heh-heh-heh. I can’t help myself sometimes.
Wait a tic, is that cleaveage on the poster? How come only her suit has a low cut front? Yeah this is daredevil all over agin.
Why didn’t you like Daredevil? I enjoyed it a lot and felt it was very faithful to and respectful of the comics it was based on.
I know some people don’t like Ben Affleck and couldn’t past him being in the role of Daredevil. Are you just not a fan of his or if not what didn’t you like when it comes to the movie? Just curious.
There was alot that I liked about Daredevil but, and this is no secret, I’m not an Affleck fan so that detracted from the movie for me. His acting wasn’t good enough to make me forget it was him up there on the screen. The special effects were great and not having read any Daredevil I enjoyed the wasy the wrote the character.
Tom, you kill me. Please don’t make this a date night movie…I’ll never hear the end of it!
Jeff, the cameo is there…look for it! (not Ben!)
I just got back from watching this movie, and guess what? I really enjoyed it–much to my surprise! I anticipated being annoyed by either Jessica Alba’s acting or by the Torch character’s (can’t remember his name) lines. In the previews, both seemed a bit sketchy to me. In fact there are several scenes in the previews where I’m left groaning at the idiocy of it all, but during the actual movie I thought they were quite comedic!
Fun late night summer movie!
Since you and Tom have been agreeing on movies lately he is gonna be forced to like this one now! 🙂 You bring up a great point, Melissa, this is a very comedic comic book movie, moreso than recent ones. I think that is one of the critics’ complaints but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was campy, but it did have alot of comedy to it which made it fun.
The thing about daredevil is that it was one of the first of the comics that are being made to film and so you expect it to be more grown up on the big screen unless it’s animated. I only know of daredevil from one or two episodes of my old Spiderman collection so I had to remember his story. I like Ben Affleck as an actor although he tends to be Ben Affleck in all his movies (which btw is a huge complaint I have of Tom Cruise in wotw among other things afore mentioned, he was Tom Cruise through the whole movie– George Clooney has this problem too). I liked daredevil and the Hulk about the same with the same feel. I imagine FF to be similar. Jeff I agree with you DD stayed true to the comics I saw him in.
Carl and I seem to have begun a lover’s spat over our recent disagreement of current movie choices. I, of course, thrive on this so if I seem to be overly disagreeable it’s probably just a technique to arouse division. Actually I loved wotw.
No I didn’t.
Tom, you’re a funny dude.
Melissa like FF?! Wow, I didn’t see that coming. Alba just looks so bad in the previews. Walking cleavage, poor money-line delivery.
So it wasn’t near as bad as Elektra?
My list of actors that act the same in every movie they are in.
Tom Cruise
Ben Affleck (the fact that he can’t act doesn’t help)
Richard Gere (ad nausium)
Hugh Grant
George Clooney (Oh Brother excluded)
Adam Sandler
Jimmy, have you seen Punch Drunk Love? I don’t like Sandler’s “normal” movies, but he’s a great actor in that one.
I’d have to agree with your list James but there are just too many Cruise movies that I really, really like: Far and Away, MI:2, Minority Report, Jerry Maguire, The Firm. Keanu Reeves is another actor who is essentially the same in every movie but I like alot of his as well. Don’t know why Gere or Affleck have never appealed to me.
I enjoy our lovers quarrels as well Tom, makes the make up sex so much better. (accept my apology if you need to dear readers, I just can’t bear to edit that last comment though I may live to regret it!)
And since when have any of you guys had problems with “walking cleavage”? Actually I’ve never been a big fan of Alba’s but I thought she was very cute in FF.
I have to say that the best of the bigger budget movies thus far this year are Batman Begins, Cinderella Man, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. If you’ve missed any of them I encourage you to see them as they are all well worth a night out at the movies.
I take my grandson to see all these movies – a few I’ve refused to go to. I liked this one. For me, Michael Chiklis was the best one of the bunch. Too bad they couldn’t have done better with his costume. they did a good job with the others, especially the “Torch”. It certainly wasn’t a great movie, but it was fun.
Chiklis is great in everything. He needs to do more films.
I enjoyed it and I hope they do make the sequel because they devoted so much time to setting up in this one that the story almost took a back seat. For example, what exactly was it that Doom wanted???
Still haven’t seem Mr and Mrs Smith but I’m more exited about million dollar baby on DVD tomorrow because somehow I missed it at the movies.
Rob, I know! I’m surprised too that I liked this movie! But, it was enjoyable and funny! Who’d a thunkit?
I don’t think Alba was amazing by an means, but her acting wasn’t a distraction at least. Walking cleavage? Generally, not a fan, but at least for once she wasn’t doing any belly dancing during this film.
.
I can’t wait to see Million Dollar Baby! We should be getting it soon!
Carl, seen Chiklis in The Shield? I thought FF was his only movie.
Julie, Million Dollar Baby is great discussion material.
According to Netflix Million Dollar Baby is shipping to us today.
Don’t you guys have enough kids already???
I’ve seen some of the Shield but don’t have FX as part of my satellite package now. He looked great in it. Loved him in The Commish as well. He reminds me of a Bruce Willis type actor and I’d like to see him in some similar roles.
they’re already slated to do at least 3 sequels.
Chiklis was only 28 when he acted in The Commish.
Poor bald guy.
I had heard that and was really blown away by it! Ah well, its paying off for him now as he plays the tough bald cop role very well and I’m sure he’s not hurting financially!
Tom, I agree with your statement on Affleck and Cruise. They usually seem to act the same way in most movies. I don’t mind either one when they are cast in the right roles that fit with there natural talents it’s when they’re miscast that it really hurts a movie. Tom Cruise is made to fit in roles like Mission Impossible and Minority Report not roles like the Last Samuari or Collateral. Affleck also works in Armageddon but not so much in comdies like Surviving Christmas.