Glass Rebel
Member
With Civil War hype in full effect, I've been on a CBM binge lately and since I've seen all the good ones thought I'd scrape the bottom of the barrel. In the last 3 days I've (re)watched every single Fantastic Four movie.
Here are some random thoughts:
Fantastic 4 (2005)
It's as crappy as I remember it. I think the only saving graces are the Thing/Torch interactions and the last scene where they face off against Doom and beat him as a team.
Speaking of Doom, I completely hate that they used his Ultimate F4 origin. I guess it's easier for the pacing of the story so you don't have to show two separate origin stories but it just diminishes everything about the character and his relationship to Reed. And it's easier to have him just shoot electric bolts all over the place instead of using his entire repertoire.
Oh yeah, Jessica Alba is awful in this. In a movie with hammed in performances she absolutely takes the cake. I read somewhere that the director made her not move her face too much so she'd look prettier or something. Fucked up, to say the least.
Scenes that stuck out:
- During the montage where they show the team trying to live together in the Baxter Building Mr. Fantastic uses his stretching powers to get a roll of toilet paper from another room and Johnny sees it. I thought Chris Evans' face was hilarious.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
By far the best of the bunch, not that it's saying much. It's still campy as hell but I think it's improved in almost every single way over the original, especially in terms of comedy.
The banter between Johnny and Ben is pretty silly and there are some nice bits of practical humour. However, Tim Story seems to have a worrisome tendency to make Sue Storm appear naked. It'sborderline creepy.
Bringing back Victor was a mistake but I guess they needed that kind of villain for general audiences. Again, completely wasted. I actually had to rewind to catch what happened to him.
I actually think the Silver Surfer is quite well-done. When he's introduced, there's a T-1000 vibe to him (not just visually) and later in the movie you see his melancholic and tormented side pretty well. Of course, they completely ruined Galactus (a fucking cloud, really?) and Norin's relationship to him.
Not sure what the point of Johnny's condition was either. Him facing Doom by himself misses the point of the F4 entirely and by the end it's resolved without any major effort.
Scenes that stuck out:
- Johnny chasing the Silver Surfer was pretty cool, especially when SS phases through a building and then through his board.
- Doom getting Silver Surfer's board and blasting a metal door through several walls to hit Ben and Reed with it.
Fan4stic aka Fantastic Four (2015)
This is a complete dumpster fire. I'm not even sure why this has the F4 name attached to it. The Tim Story movies make more use of the various superpowers in throwaway joke scenes than this ever even attempts. The only interesting bits are between Johnny and Franklin.
They use the Ultimate F4 origin for Doom again. If you thought they couldn't make a worse design than the goat-hoof version, you thought wrong. And his personality pre-transformation is even worse. He's edgier before he turns into that metallic piece of shit.
Really, the most tragic thing about this movie is that they brought these young talented actors together and gave them the most shit dialogue ever to work with. The first two had a pretty crappy script as well but I refuse to believe that an actual human wrote the lines for the reboot. It's a testament to the cast's ability how much they managed to get out of it.
Scenes that stuck out:
- Young Ben gets beat up by his older brother who uses the words "it's clobbering time!". That's just fucked up.
- When Reed and Sue talk about Sue being adopted, she tells him that she's from Kosovo. Thought that was cool since it's my home country. Then Reed says "You don't have an accent" and Sue replies "No, I don't" in the most stereotypical Cold War ass fake Russian accent ever. Thanks for that.
So really, three movies ranging from alright to toxic waste. If you're only gonna see one, it's Rise of the Silver Surfer, hands down.
I really wish we could get a faithful and most of all good adaptation of the F4 and Doom on screen. One day, maybe.
Except for the 1994 one.
Fantastic 4 (2005)
It's as crappy as I remember it. I think the only saving graces are the Thing/Torch interactions and the last scene where they face off against Doom and beat him as a team.
Speaking of Doom, I completely hate that they used his Ultimate F4 origin. I guess it's easier for the pacing of the story so you don't have to show two separate origin stories but it just diminishes everything about the character and his relationship to Reed. And it's easier to have him just shoot electric bolts all over the place instead of using his entire repertoire.
Oh yeah, Jessica Alba is awful in this. In a movie with hammed in performances she absolutely takes the cake. I read somewhere that the director made her not move her face too much so she'd look prettier or something. Fucked up, to say the least.
Scenes that stuck out:
- During the montage where they show the team trying to live together in the Baxter Building Mr. Fantastic uses his stretching powers to get a roll of toilet paper from another room and Johnny sees it. I thought Chris Evans' face was hilarious.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
By far the best of the bunch, not that it's saying much. It's still campy as hell but I think it's improved in almost every single way over the original, especially in terms of comedy.
The banter between Johnny and Ben is pretty silly and there are some nice bits of practical humour. However, Tim Story seems to have a worrisome tendency to make Sue Storm appear naked. It's
Bringing back Victor was a mistake but I guess they needed that kind of villain for general audiences. Again, completely wasted. I actually had to rewind to catch what happened to him.
I actually think the Silver Surfer is quite well-done. When he's introduced, there's a T-1000 vibe to him (not just visually) and later in the movie you see his melancholic and tormented side pretty well. Of course, they completely ruined Galactus (a fucking cloud, really?) and Norin's relationship to him.
Not sure what the point of Johnny's condition was either. Him facing Doom by himself misses the point of the F4 entirely and by the end it's resolved without any major effort.
Scenes that stuck out:
- Johnny chasing the Silver Surfer was pretty cool, especially when SS phases through a building and then through his board.
- Doom getting Silver Surfer's board and blasting a metal door through several walls to hit Ben and Reed with it.
Fan4stic aka Fantastic Four (2015)
This is a complete dumpster fire. I'm not even sure why this has the F4 name attached to it. The Tim Story movies make more use of the various superpowers in throwaway joke scenes than this ever even attempts. The only interesting bits are between Johnny and Franklin.
They use the Ultimate F4 origin for Doom again. If you thought they couldn't make a worse design than the goat-hoof version, you thought wrong. And his personality pre-transformation is even worse. He's edgier before he turns into that metallic piece of shit.
Really, the most tragic thing about this movie is that they brought these young talented actors together and gave them the most shit dialogue ever to work with. The first two had a pretty crappy script as well but I refuse to believe that an actual human wrote the lines for the reboot. It's a testament to the cast's ability how much they managed to get out of it.
Scenes that stuck out:
- Young Ben gets beat up by his older brother who uses the words "it's clobbering time!". That's just fucked up.
- When Reed and Sue talk about Sue being adopted, she tells him that she's from Kosovo. Thought that was cool since it's my home country. Then Reed says "You don't have an accent" and Sue replies "No, I don't" in the most stereotypical Cold War ass fake Russian accent ever. Thanks for that.
So really, three movies ranging from alright to toxic waste. If you're only gonna see one, it's Rise of the Silver Surfer, hands down.
I really wish we could get a faithful and most of all good adaptation of the F4 and Doom on screen. One day, maybe.
Fingers crossed for my Books of Doom dream adaptation.
