by Samsonator » Tue Aug 11, 2015 1:14 am
- Motto: ""Death is the only way out.""
- Weapon: Sword of Fury
Not content to let the reviews of others form my opinion of Fantastic Four, I went to see it today (Thankfully, I didn't have to pay for it, a friend had free passes. I would have been pretty sad if I wasted my money on it)
So the first act of the film, the origin story of the origin story, was well done, and flowed naturally, I enjoyed it. By this point I wondered what it was that turned so many people off the film.
All of the scenes between Reed and Sue, however... awkward and extremely forced, kind of like "These characters couldn't have any less chemistry, but because they get together in the comics, we're just gonna have them awkwardly laugh and romance will naturally blossom!" It was more annoying than endearing. Aside from that I had no problem with most of the film up to the point of the experiment/accident that makes the four "fantastic".
The build-up of forming the team, giving them powers, and giving them something to fight, took way too long, and wasted far too much time on inconsequential story threads that all had the potential to be something, but are waved away minutes later when the story calls for it (I'll go into spoiler-tagged details later). The constant throat-shoving "Military dudes are jerks and want to use brilliant scientists to make new weapons to control the world" aspect hurt, too. It was way too in-your-face, and almost cartoony with how many times they point out how evil these men are supposed to be.
Finally we come to the (honestly anti-)climax of the film, their adversary is revealed (more on what's wrong with THAT later) his plan is set in motion (whatever it honestly was...) and the four finally team up to take him down... like... with ten minutes of runtime left... A truncated battle ensues, featuring that terrible cliche where the good guys are getting their collective asses beat down, until one of them gets back up, it invigorates the heroes, and they triumph where before they could do little. Then we get a "wrapping everything up" moment, and a lead in to the credits that, again, feels incredibly forced and stupid.
What I liked:
The intro. Usually, I'm not big on flashbacks to prior years as a method of introducing characters, but it was fun. It had just enough information to move everything along, and didn't feel like it was beating you over the head with anything (except Ben's brother saying "It's clobbering time" before picking on him)
The visuals. Nearly everything in this movie looked incredible. Very well done on a lot of the visual effects. I had heard they were bad, but honestly, I liked the look of the movie.
What I didn't like (Here comes the spoiler tags due to how detailed I gotta get on some of this)
The mass amount of story elements that were dropped as soon as it became convenient, including, but not limited to:
Victor's infatuation with Sue, and jealousy over Sue and Reed "getting along so well", pretty much disappeared as soon as the gate was finished, and the alcohol passed around, never came up again.
Three guys getting drunk off one flask, and being drunk long enough that nearly an hour later, after Ben arrived, they still thought their drunken plan was a good idea.
The complete lack of explanation for anything going on in the other dimension, simply marking it as mysterious and unknown so that nobody thinks too hard when it causes super powers to manifest in people. Nothing is ever explored on what the "living energy" they discover might actually be, they just... gloss over it entirely.
Reed freaking out, leaving and being on the run for a year. I get that he learned to reshape his face to better avoid detection, but you can't expect me to believe that a kid they plucked out of a highschool science fair can escape a top-secret government facility and successfully evade the FBI, CIA and NSA for a year. Also, as soon as they find him, it's basically like he's never been gone in the first place, almost everyone just accepts him back, making the entire plot thread completely pointless.
Ben's resentment of Reed. Reed left his best friend (read: sidekick) in the hands of the military for a year, and Ben is understandably pissed. For about five minutes. There's what can barely be described as a fight in the forest, they get a brief and awkward exchange of unpleasantries, and then nothing. Sh*t goes down and they're immediately back in the saddle. No trace of previous animosity, like it never even existed.
Doom.Let's be completely honest, yeah he looked kinda cool, if you're into misshapen scar tissue faces behind what appears to be a plastic outer casing (lookin' at you, first Joe movie Cobra Commander), but what powers did the other dimension and it's living energy give him? I understand it gave him some measure of control over the other world, being able to bend it to his will, but what's that crap he pulled on our side? He's wandering around the military research facility, popping the heads of scientists, doctors and soldiers like he's friggin' Tetsuo from Akira. If I had to guess, I'd say he's passing the energy from himself to someone else and overloading their body or something, but the movie just kinda hand waves that away, too. Then there's his look. He has a shroud, to make him look more Doom-y... but where the hell did he get that from? When he fell, all he had was his suit, it got grafted to him, they mentioned that much. Where did he get the remnants of a cloak from? Also, when he returned to the other dimension by way of the travel pod, it sure was nice of the soldiers and scientists that brought him back to leave the cloak in the pod so he could put it back on when he got to the other side! Good thing that was all a part of his plan...speaking of...
What the hell was Doom's plan anyway?
Like, I know he wants to reset the world 'cause humanity's a plague and all... but like... how does his plan even work? He travels in the pod back to the other dimension, then he like... overloads the pod... which, by the way, is not the thing that causes the teleportation, but okay, whatever... then builds some structure out of the stones of the planet, and like... focuses a beam from the pod through the stones that opens a portal to earth and hits the machine that actually does the teleporty thing, and starts sucking up the surrounding area... try as I might, I couldn't make any sense of that. Reed initially states that Doom overloading the system would cause a black hole, suddenly that shifts gears from "Black Hole" to "Bullsh*t portal thing that dissolves matter that passes beyond a certain point" which, coincidentally, happens to be the one thing they can use to destroy Doom... why does this feel like a bad sci-fi anime?
Finally, the lead-in to the credits.
Oh my, that... They get a building/research laboratory, and are trying to decide what to call it... Then Reed, forcibly, as though someone's sticking him with a cattle prod, is like "Hey guys, we're a team, WE need a name!" and after a couple of "ha-ha" joke names, Ben ultimately is the one to (completely out of character) use the word "Fantastic" in a sentence... Reed's all "Say that again!" and finally "Guys, I've got it! We're the..."
Cut to black
Show film title
Hate yourself.
This movie wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't any good. There were parts that played well, but they were far outnumbered by things that made no sense, added nothing to the story, set up, then aborted character development, and otherwise made my viewing experience a less enjoyable one. I'd be generous giving it a two out of ten rating, if I used such rating systems. Honestly, REALLY glad I didn't pay for it.
