The FANTASTIC FOUR Review Thread
 

Couldn't find a review thread, only a sneek peak/preview thread which is not the same so here goes.

As a fan of comic book movies, i found FF enjoyable enough, was definitely entertaining but seriously lacked the passion and emotion of say Spiderman and Xmen.

Julian McMahon as Doom just didnt do it for me, i know they had to set up the story and stuff but he was the weak link in the movie.

Johnny Storm was very cool as was the thing, loved seeing Alicia in the film.

Seeing Jessica Alba in her bra and panties, be it briefly almost made me lose it, she's stunning ! but her performance was only ok.

I hope the movie does well enough for a sequel because the raw ingredients are there, just need everything to be turned up a notch for it to really gel.

you delete this and i will go down under and kick your ass.. then have a pint of ale with you des. :)

I loved it. While not as good as Spidey or X-Men,I thought it was more entertaining than Batman Begins,I like it better than Begins,tho Begins has a better story,I just got a kick out of F4. 9/10.

This is one of those movies that I left scratching my head, wondering if the reviewers/critics saw the same film that I did, because I loved it. Ooohh, so there wasn't some big "save the world" climactic battle. Big deal. The focus of the story wasn't on them saving the world. They were saving each other. And it worked fine for me.

Things I liked about the film...

The "tone".
The effects.
Johnny.
Alicia.
The cast.

Things I didn't like about the film...

Doom.
The "Fly" chamber that "Superman 2"'s their powers.
Too much shirtless Johnny.
Doom hitchin' a ride [though I understand why it was done].
Not enough naked Jessica.
The annoying soundtrack [NOT the score]. Guess i've been nu-metal'd to death.

It suffered from script problems. the set up was great, but the second half was just all over the place.

That's not to say I didn't like it. I thought it was fun and was higher on the list then some of the other fox marvel movies.

I didn't mean to sound as if I was claiming it was perfect, and it is probably not in the same league as the really good superhero films -- Superman I & II, both Spidey films, and the good Batman films (both Burton's and Begins). But I will say that I enjoyed it every bit as much as, if not more than, either of the X-Men films, which seemed to garner much better reviews. And I definitely enjoyed it more than Daredevil (which I liked, but just not as much as Fantastic 4), and even that movie got better reviews.

Like I said, I am just scratching my head, wondering what makes reviewers 'tick'.

I really liked it; audience seemed to love it
 

With thw horrible reviews I was expecting this movie to be really bad, and to be honest the previews seemed really lackluster. I started with a negative view but the movie quickly won me over. I really, really liked this move and thought in the end it really captured the FF. The audience that I saw it with, really got into it as well. A really good indicator of a movie is clapping at the end, few movies get it. FF got enthusiastic applause. It really was one of my nicest movie surprises. I hope word gets out that this is a really good film and it does well.

I think I know where the negative reviews come from. FF, in my view is the closest I have seen to a true comic book on the screen. Not necessarily the "best" picture, but the one that most captured the feel and tone of a comic book, especially pure entertainment value. There was no deep thematic elements, no brooding angst or especially clever movie camerawork. It was just a comic book brought to life. That said, it did have some excellent character development, but did not have the big story arc, theme, or dramatic subplot. It was just a movie to entertain. And it did that extremely well. I loved it and the audience did too. Reviewers are so jaded nowadays that they cant just sit back and enjoy a light movie. Their loss.

Final note on the clapping: I saw ROTS, Batman Returns, and War of the Worlds all on the first day. FF got louder and more enthusiastic clapping than any of them.

If you were on the fence, go see it. It is worth it, and I would like to see another one.

Batman Begins was more intellectual but not necessarily more entertaining.

Comic book movies aren't meant to be cerebal, they are supposed to bring your comic books to life, simple as that and seeing the Human torch supernova, seeing the thing, seeing Mr Fantastic especially was well cool.

However other comic book movies have managed to add that level of depth and emotion to the characters and FF just slightly lacked that. The Reed Richards/Sue Storm relationship never worked because with Sue being as smoking hot as she was, you just wanted Reed to say "i can now stretch my dick to 2 metres, lets get down and dirty"

The Things prothetics weren't bad but they still looked like a man in a suit. Effects for the Human Torch were the best.

I dunno. I thought the thing look beyond well compared to the promotional shots of him in the suit. in action it really worked well.

I haven't seen it yet...but I can't figure out why they would change Doom's mask. It's the most visually distinctive element in the whole thing and they make it look totally generic. At least that's how it seems in the trailer, I hope I'm wrong.

What are you talking about? Doom's mask looks identical to the one he has in the comics.

Doom is the reason I want to see this as he is probably my favorite Marvel villian. But I keep reading he's the worst part of the movie. :(

I am disappointed to hear that Doom isn't that great, as I thought Julian McMahon playing the character almost guaranteed he would be spot on.

I feel the same way, Dr. DVD. I wonder what went wrong here. The casting of Doom was solid yet I've heard that Julian McMahon either outright sucked or was just hohum. :(

thats what i was saying,cause i loved this movei, it was funny, exciting, and everyone in the theater seemed to really enjoy this movie. i am gonna see it a few more times, then it "ends"-they all stopped and waitied for the scene with Doom being shipped . That's a true sign that the audience liked it. None of them left.

i would give it a B+ or 9/10

26% on Rotten Tomatoes currently. I was debating on seeing this or War of the Worlds (73%) tonight. That made up my mind. :D

Might as well repeat my thoughts from the other thread...

I thought it was alright. I enjoyed watching it Friday afternoon, but it wasn't anything spectacular. I pretty much agree with all the complaints about the film, but i hardly thought those were large enough to have me leaving the theater unhappy. The action was a bit dissapointing and lackluster, and Dr. Doom was a fairly bland villain though. Torch and Thing were absolutely spot on in the movie, with some funny interaction between them as well, and Jessica Alba was just drool worthy :)

Repost from the sneak peak thread:

For 2/3 of the film, I had a good time with the film, but having to balance the levity by the FF with the the Dr. Doom segments made the last third of the film very uneven.

The interplay between the FF members was pretty good, much of it was true to the spirit of the characters in the comics. Johnny Storm provided most of the yuks, and usually at Ben Grimm's expense. I can't say there was great on-screen chemistry between Reed Richard and Sue Storm, but it wasn't horrible.

After the "origin" segment is over, the film sort of putters along, but it never gains a lot of traction, so the final act is average, not terrible, but not great either.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

Additional comments from the other thread:

Don't get me wrong, I was laughing a lot from the interplay between Johnny and Ben, but they kept hammering home the point that Ben is going to have problems finding stuff to fit his mits-for-hands.

As I stated, I liked the tone of the FF film for 2/3 of the film, but then it goes really dark, and the confrontation between the FF and Dr. Doom just wasn't "epic" enough for a big screen treatment. The writing for Dr. Doom's motivations were thread-bare at best. He was just there to be the bad guy, no significant treatment of him as a character grounded in the real world, and when he goes "bad" it just screams "Plot Device" to give the movie some conflict to coast to the finish line of the film's running time.

(Note - Ewwww... just saw the Burger King commercial where the bespectacled blond nerd got caught feeding the Sue Storm standee a fry, and then licked the dab of ketchup off of Sue's cheek. Ewww...)

:lol: I wonder why?

Lot better than I thought it would be. The special effects were excellent. 3 of the 4 did a good job. Jessica Alba just isn't that strong of an actress, but damn is she so nice to look at. Between the 2 babes I saw in movies this weekend: Alba and Jolie, hard for me to say which one is hotter.

Yeah - Doom seemed off. I don't think it was Julian McMahon's fault as I think he is a marvelous actor (maybe the best on television). The writing for the character just didn't seem to be there.

I was pleasantly surprised. Not as good as Spiderman 2 or X2... but not as bad as Daredevil or Hulk. I give it a 7 out of 10. I just hope they find a better director for the sequel... all the elements were there but Tim Story didn't put then together effectively.

To me it was 50/50 good/bad.
Dr. Doom and plot was lame, but all Human Torch scenes are very entertaining.
It had a good t.v. show feel to it.
The production felt like Terminator 3, which by that I mean good not great.

I'd rate it nearly as good as the first X-Men movie, honestly (which was fine until the final half-hour or so). I liked it. Lighthearted tone, which was good with all the ultra-serious comic flicks lately. Not perfect, but better than I expected. Glad to be pleasantly surprised by it.

I was expecting a real turd of a movie after reading all the negative reviews, and expected something worse than Punisher, and possibly worse than the Man Thing. While this wasn't the worst movie of all time, it was still damn enjoyable in my book, and I am a long time fan of the Fantastic Four. I just wish they had set up something with the Negative Zone, and I think they did putter around a bit too much with the FF kind of screwing around, but hopefully that set up stuff will be past them in time for the sequel and we can see some more action.

I saw it with a friend and he wasn't too impressed, and compained a bit about the CGI. While the CGI wasn't perfect, I do hope the movie makes enough money where they can throw more money into a sequel to make it look better, but that did not take away my enjoyment of the movie at all.

And here is hoping we get a Galactus movie for the next one!!! With Nova!!! And the Negative Zone! The one thing I always loved about the comics was the sci-fi aspect of it, and I know in reading interviews with Stan Lee, that is one of the reasons why he loved writing FF so much back in the day, so I would like to see more of the sci-fi aspect of this group. Any superhero movie can have heroes and villians ripping up the streets of New York, so let's see what sets the Fantastic Four apart from the rest of the heroes on the block in the next movie!!