The first Fantastic Four flick certainly didn't live up to its title. This one's a bit better, altho I dunno if they're gonna get to the point where they have to consider what to name Fantastic Four... IV.Anyway, the reason this one succeeds slightly is that it's freed from the burden of exposition. We know who the Four are, we know what Fantastic things they can do, so it's good to see them just do it. Human Torch's fire effects seem to have improved, and they had a bit more fun with Mr. Fantastic's stretchability, but The Thing still looks and acts like... a guy in a rubber rock suit. Jessica Alba's basically her own special effect, altho they do saddle her (not as fun as it sounds) with a weird wig/dye job and bizarrely blue contacts.
The new wrinkle this time is the arrival of the Silver Surfer, who looks like the morphy T-1000 from Terminator 2... on a surfboard. He works for Galactus, the Destroyer of Worlds, who sends the Surfer to scout out worlds for him to, well, destroy. In the comics, Galactus is a really big guy who actually eats planets. The movie shows him as an indistinct cloud that engulfs Earth. I get that a giant in a pink hat eating the world prolly doesn't work well on film but a big cloud is still basically a big cloud.
There's a lot of hand-wringing about Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman's wedding, proving that no action movie can exist without cliched character drama. There's a hardass army general, proving that a moral compass or common sense don't appear on any recruiting (or Central Casting) form. There's Dr. Doom again, proving that Hollywood still wants more villains so they can sell more action figures. There's the second Stan Lee cameo of the summer, proving that we should stop paying him homage. And the whole thing feels really poorly paced, proving that director Tim Story is a Chris Columbus-level hack.
What works? The races and chases with the Surfer are fun. Chris Evans highlights the film again as Johnny Storm. His banter with Ben Grimm is amusing. And it's short.
Should you go? Dunno. If you're a big Fantastic Four fan, you'll likely be both pleased and pissed as it gets as many notes wrong as it does right. If you're not, you'll likely slot it in somewhere between Daredevil and Ghost Rider in terms of iffy superhero movies. If you're a kid, you'll likely enjoy it, altho you're also not likely reading this. So overall, prolly not – Netflix The Incredibles instead.
4 comments:
Cyclops (from x-men) and Reed Richards are two heros whose powers, I felt, don't translate to film very well.
Agree. Reed's power is, in fact, that he's effin brilliant at a level we can't comprehend. Not that his face is squishy.
There's a great moment in the current Astonishing X-Men (Whedon's run) where when the fit's really ready to hit the shan, Cyclops takes off his goggles and the world goes completely red. When it clears, Wolverine says something along the lines of "now I remember why you're the leader of this team." In the movies he falls flat.
The should have called it Craptastic 4.
Catherinette: you're prolly right - in retrospect, I was too kind. And welcome.
Post a Comment