Fantastic Four Review

I should preface this review by saying I’m a big Fantastic Four fan. I’ve been reading the comics for nine years now and after the X-Men and Spider-man, they’re probably my third favorite comic book franchise. You can take that statement two ways. You can think “he must know what he’s talking about then” or “the less I know about the comic, the less I’ll care about how the film compares”. So how does the film compare? Well, not so good. While the Fantastic Four comic has seen some of the most exciting, groundbreaking, and mind-bending comics of the past 40 years, the Fantastic Four movie seems like a retread of those that came before with concessions made in all the wrong places.

So now you’re wondering what works and what doesn’t. I can point to two problems that I spotted at the beginning of production: a lack of marquee actors and an unremarkable director. The big problem though was one I couldn’t see, a bland script that does comic’s greatest family little justice. Ioan Gruffudd’s Mr. Fantastic is the most boring lead character I’ve ever seen in a super-hero movie. It’s true that Johnny and Ben have always been the fan favorites, but Gruffudd just flounders in the role, and as the group’s leader that’s a big problem whether it’s the character you came to see or not. People may root for Wolverine over Cyclops, but that conflict would fall apart if the audience had complete disinterest in Cyclops. Complaints about Gruffudd’s screen presence aside, I can think of nothing Reed has in the movie that would have been exciting with any actor. As for his love interest, the Invisible Girl, Jessica Alba brings the T&A but not much else. Jessica Alba as a stripper? Great choice. Jessica Alba as a physicist? Come again? Ok, so the scientist aspect isn’t an integral part of the character (in fact it was only recently added in the Fantastic Four modernization), but the other things that make Sue unique don’t show up either. They try to make her maternal, but it just isn’t believable coming from the current hottie of the month. It’s even suggested that she’s the weakest member of the group during the final battle when she falters under the pressure. This is a huge insult to the character (and pretty sexist if you ask me), as Sue has always been considered the most powerful member in the comic in every sense of the word. Jessica may be the only name bringing people into the theater, but they pretty much just lucked into that with Sin City making her a star a mere three months ago. Michael Chiklis does what he can with the material given, and if nothing else I’m happy to see him come out relatively unscathed. It’d be tough to watch Vic Mackey kick ass every week in the Shield if he looked like a complete fool in this, but thankfully that doesn’t happen. I still do not really like the visuals of the Thing though. He really didn’t seem to have any real weight onscreen. Sure, they told us that he did and they even showed bar stools collapsing under him, but he still seemed like a guy in a suit to me, a guy that could barely make a fist or move his arms for that matter. Chris Evans as the Human Torch is the one real standout in the movie. Along with Alba as the Invisible Girl (trust me, I hate writing that as much as you hate reading it. She’s the Invisible WOMAN dammit) Evans was the casting choice I was most skeptical of, but he really did a great job at bringing the Torch to life. The best bits of the movie come from Evan’s interactions with Chiklis, which really makes me wish they’d had a better movie to put these parts in. But what about the villain? Dr. Doom is possibly the greatest super-villain of all time but you wouldn’t know it from this movie. Everything that makes the character so cool has either disappeared or been half-assed. He should be the second smartest man in the world with the power of a country behind him, but instead that’s stripped away for a lame Green Goblin origin and electric powers. I did like the costume to my surprise, as I always thought that would be one of the tougher elements to bring to the screen, but I hated the actor in it. Julian McMahon does ok with the with the egotistical billionaire stuff, but as Doom, he’s laughable. Right now, my vote for worst moment of the movie goes to Doom playing Marco Polo as he searches for the Invisible Girl. To get a hint of what Doom should be like, watch the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. Darth Vader was largely inspired by Dr. Doom, and while there are significant differences between the characters, Vader is a lot closer to what I’ve always imagined than the Doom we get here. Character complaints aside (and as you’ve seen, there’s a lot of them) the biggest problem I had with the movie was that there was nothing fantastic about it. There’s only two action scenes in the entire movie, neither of which is all that impressive. If you’ve been watching TV for the past month, chances are you’ve seen the commercials (this movie has seen a media blitz the likes of which I haven’t seen in years), and if you’ve seen them, you’ve seen everything in the movie. The funny thing is I never felt like I’d seen too much from the trailers and tv-spots. If anything I came away from the trailers (particularly the first one) thinking that there really wasn’t enough cool stuff going on in them and hoping that we just had more saved for the movie. Well now we know why at least. The last time I was this disappointed by a “comic” movie was the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. By the end of that movie I was slumped over into the chair next to me, mentally begging the movie to end. This time when we got to the climax, I was shocked that it was happening already and thinking “There’s no way it’s ending now. When are we going to see all the great Fantastic Four stuff?”. Sadly I didn’t get an answer to that question. The final battle ended as quickly as the rest of the movie did. The whole fight can probably be pieced together by editing the commercials together. Marvel Films really needs to get its act together. Their initial promise of a golden age of comic book film has not delivered beyond the two franchises that started their reign, one of which seems to be in major trouble right now if the internet rumors are to be believed. DC and Warner Brothers have stepped up and delivered one of the best superhero movies ever this summer, with what looks to be another one set to be released next year. It’s time that Marvel realized that their days at the top are numbered and if this is the kind of material they’re going to give us than we’ll just be buying tickets from the Distinguished Competition.

So this brings a close to my summer movie reviews. There’s still a few left that I’m excited to see, but nothing that I feel demands my particular brand of critique. There’s always the chance that I’ll be blindsided by a smaller picture the way we all were with Garden State last year, in which case I’d be required to write something both to get the word out and use as evidence that I was there first. I should probably spend the rest of my time until then job hunting though, as this blog ain’t exactly paying the bills and that degree is just collecting dust right now.

War of the Worlds Review

Well it looks like we have a winner here. Over the years Steven Spielberg’s name has become synonymous with summer blockbusters and with good reason. He pretty much invented the genre with Jaws in 1975, which to this day stands as arguably the greatest summer movie of all time. 18 years later he released Jurassic Park which ushered in the modern era of event movies where CGI finally reached maturity and became a staple of blockbuster filmmaking. In my last review when I stated that Batman was my favorite movie from 1989 to 2002, I may have misspoken a little. In fact it was my favorite movie on and off for that period. When Jurassic Park hit it was like an atomic blast. As far as I was concerned there were no other movies worth speaking of. Jurassic Park was THE movie. Of course after a little while my interest in dinosaurs waned and superheroes became king once more. Spielberg then took a step back from event movies focusing on more personal films like Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. He made a return in recent years with AI and Minority Report with limited success. Minority Report was a good movie but lacked that Spielbergian touch, feeling more like the works of James Cameron or Ridley Scott. AI on the other hand was a complete mess. To be fair though, AI was originally planned as a collaboration between Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, a filmmaker who I consider to be one of the most overrated directors of all time. With War of the Worlds we see the triumphant return of the Steven Spielberg that has given us the most compelling films of the last 30 years.

I realize this may all seem like pretty lofty praise for a movie that looks like a rehashing of Independence Day and the numerous other invasion epics we’ve seen in recent years. After all, this is the man who brought us Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Calling a movie one of Spielberg’s better pictures is higher praise than the vast majority of films deserve, but I feel that it is entirely justified. The excitement I had coming out of that theater is not something I feel often. I had it after Kill Bill and I had it after the first Spider-man, but I can’t think of too many others in recent memory. You know that feeling. The idea that you’ve just witnessed something that you’ll be enjoying again and again for the rest of your life. The moments you can’t stop thinking about and the exhilaration of being on the ground floor of something special. It’s moments like these that are the reason I spend hours every day browsing movie sites, and the thought of having a part (how ever small) in bringing people these moments is what makes me want to work in the film industry. And as for that Independence Day comparison? Trust me, after seeing War of the Worlds, you’ll never feel the need to watch that movie again. So what makes the movie work so well? For starters this is without a doubt Spielberg’s scariest movie ever. I really don’t think anyone is anticipating the level of terror to be found in this movie. I know I didn’t. This isn’t Jaws scary where you get a few truly terrifying moments that you know are coming when you hear that familiar music. This is two hours of the absolute grimmest material you can imagine. And as scary as those aliens are, they’ve got nothing on the horror that we see come out of human nature. What about the performances you say? Well Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. He’s a great actor, but he doesn’t really disappear into his role the way you want him to, and I think the enormous amount of press he’s been (let’s face it) bringing on himself for the past month didn’t exactly help him. When you watch the movie 10 years from now though, you won’t be thinking about any of that, so thankfully it’s just a temporary problem. As for Dakota Fanning, what can I say? To add to my hyperbole I will say that Dakota Fanning is the greatest child actor of all time. It’s a bold statement, I know, but she is just the epitome of the word “prodigy”. How many child actors can consistently steal scenes from Oscar winner after Oscar winner? I just hope she doesn’t self destruct the way so many other child actors unfortunately have in the past. Then of course there’s Morgan Freeman who lends his voice to the opening and denouement of the film, because if you’re going to have narration in a movie you might as well go with the best. He’s great as usual and just makes me wish that in the future there will be technology that can change my inner monologue to his voice. I’ve heard more than a few complaints about the end of the movie, but I felt that it worked perfectly and is really the only way the film could have ended. The entire movie follows the perspective of a civilian so I doubt that those complaining would have been happy with any ending where the invaders weren’t defeated by the star of the show. I will say that there is one element of the ending that I could have done with out. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s the cheesiest element of the film, but I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Other than that though I loved everything about the movie (as you may have guessed by now). I give it two thumbs up, four stars, and any other recommendation critics tend to write. The only question remaining is whether or not it will be topped by that other remake coming out this December. I am of course speaking of the one that previewed before WOTW in most theaters (not mine sadly). I’d be lying if I said that Mr. Jackson didn’t stand a fighting chance, but at this point he certainly has his work cut out for him.