VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4, 5 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:49:53 07/12/05 Tue
Author: Dog of War
Subject: I hate admitting when I'm wrong...

But I went into Fantastic Four REALLY expecting to hate it, and actually found it to be a lot of fun. It's not a perfect film by any means, and as superhero movies go, it's certainly not Batman Begins or Spider-Man, but it ain't Daredevil or The Punisher either.

The Fantastic Four's distinguishing trait amongst superhero teams has always been that they are a family before they are superheroes, and that is the main focus of the film. Human Torch and Thing are like a pair of bickering brothers, Mr Fatnastic is the steady, even-handed father, and Invisible Woman is the den mother trying to hold everything together. The film is at it's best when exploring the reactions of these four people, their relationships with each other, and the effects of their new powers, and fortunately, about 85% of the movie is just that.

Less successful (far less successful) is the story of the Four's battle with Doom. Dr. Doom is a legendary comic book villain, who has become pretty much the archetypal world conquering tyrranical master villain. In the movie version, he goes from a being of menace and grandeur to a whiny middle management type, who I'd barely take serious sending back a bowl of cold soup in a restaurant, much less formulating plans for world domination. Even worse, his story is pretty much identical to that of Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man movie: billionaire has his company taken from him, undergoes an accident that gives him powers, and goes on a rampage of revenge. Doom has enormous potential as a character, and for the most part, none of it was explored in FF.

The acting in this movie was MUCH better than I expected, especially from Chris Evans as Human Torch. Johnny Storm is a character who can quickly become annoying, but Evans balanced out the brash obnoxiousness of the character with a real sense of joy and enthusiasm at his new powers, and it made him ultimately quite likable. Chiklis as the Thing is just about perfect, from the gruff but lovable Ben Grimm at the beginning, to the angry, bitter, but still lovable creature he becomes. The Thing costume, which I thought looked terrible in the trailers and photos, actually didn't look bad at all on the big screen, except for the face (dammit, the Thing should have a protruding brow ridge!).

Alba as Sue Storm was also better than expected, though rather underwritten (and I did find it amusing that her costume, which was originally part of a spacesuit, was the only one with a plunging, cleavage revealing neckline; not that I'm complaining, necessarily...). Iain Gruffud (or however he spells his name) has similar problems, but Reed Richards has always been a bit of a two-dimensional character, so it's hard to fault the screenwriters for hacing the same problem that 44 years of comics writers have had.

Julian McMahon as Doom...well I felt bad for the guy. He's probably a very good actor, and I've heard he's quite good on Nip/Tuck (I've never seen the show, so I can't say), but he was terribly, terribly wrong for Dr. Doom.

But despite a few misgivings, and some distinctly Sci-Fi Channel looking special effects during the space sequences, I thought this was a whole lot of fun, and would recommend it wholeheartedly.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Post a message:
This forum requires an account to post.
[ Create Account ]
[ Login ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.