Posted by Goro on 12/05/05 14:28

I watched FANTASTIC FOUR last nite, finally, and found it to be
not-so-good.

I'm already tired of the bad guy being a CEO of a major corporation and
having a military contract so he gets "Cool ass weapon #x" (SPIDERMAN,
BATMAN BEGINS, now F4). The Reed/Sue relationship just doesn't ring
true at all, mostly owing to a horribly contrived conflict.

What was decent was that there was a reasoable effort to show the
relationship between the 4 superheroes, which IMO is what made the
comic book work. Ben/Reed, Ben/Johnny were the better established
ones, but even those never really had a chance to breathe. I felt that
much of the characterizations and relationship development were
perfunctory when they should have been the spine of the film. I'm not
sure if it's writing, acting, or just chemistry/charisma that was
subpar, but certainly something was amiss.

Some of the cheezy humor actually worked pretty well for me. Mostly
Johnny and Ben. Ben crushing Johnny's car, Johnny tossing a flameball
at the back of Ben's head, Ben making fun of the unis ("Maybe it's
missing a utility belt"), ...

Much of the plot was stupid, but comicbook-stupid so not too terrible,
but I really would have liked to have seen something more inspired.

Overall, I almost enjoyed parts of it, didn't really hate parts of it,
and watched the whole thing.

It's not awful, but it's certainly not a summer tentpole movie.

-goro-

[Back to original message]