Jessica Alba, I mean Fantastic Four
 

Well, saw this movie opening day. Entertaining, but not good. Not even as good as Mr. Mrs. Smith. Which wasn't very good at all.

Not even the Fantastic Jessica Alba could save this movie.

Sounds like you were more focused on the Fantastic Two...

I went to go see War of the Worlds last night and ended up seeing the midnight showing of this movie as well. I went in with low expectations and got what I expected. There were a couple chuckle worthy parts, but not much beyond that. Maybe any sequels that get made will be better now that the groundwork has been laid, but this movie was not one of Marvel's better offerings.

ZING @ El Pollo.

I saw Fantasstic Four today. It was alright. Nothing too special.

** out of ****

Just got back from seeing it. Thoroughly mediocre. Not good, like the X-Men and Spider-Man movies, not horrible like Catwoman, just kinda blah like Daredevil or Elektra. I'm actually considering not going back for a second viewing in the theater, and just waiting until it's time to buy the DVD.

Was... ok... at best.

Terrible finale, cringe inducing.

And what a mockery of Dr.Doom they portrayed! He didn't even pose a threat to the world, in fact, he was dispatched of within a ten minute scene, where half the scene was him revealing himself to the Four!

Seeing Alba in her underoos again was awesome though.

Why would you buy a "kinda blah" movie on DVD?

Collection purposes? Gilda does love comics :)

I still download the Naruto anime. Do I like it? God no. I collect it because I like owning complete series, as well as the fact that my friends usually borrow anime/movies from me since I have such an absurdly large collection.

Gilda, was the movie at least accurate to the characters?

Bad movie, great Jessica. If you made it through Honey for Jessica Alba, you'll make it through this.

Oh yeah, and such blatant product placement.

Doom: Let's watch what the Fantastic 4 is doing in their apartment on my SAMSUNG lcd screens.

I have a full run of Fantastic four. All 8 Masterworks that have been released, every individual issue from 120 on, the cd's to fill in the missing issues, roughly a dozen, maybe 20 miniseries. I have the Roger Corman version, and the animated series. This dvd is an automatic buy for me.

Redlemon: Pretty much. With four main characters to develop, an origin story, and one adventure, there really isn't much room for depth of character in a two hour movie. But they got the basics right, Reed is a genius who is a little bit distant, Ben is bitter and angry, but loyal, Johnny is an impulsive womanizer, Sue the caretaker and peacemaker.

There were minor story problems all over the place that added up to a big mess of a story overall. Such as the way Sue's invisibility works. At one point, Reed, Johnny and Sue need to get through a crowd. Sue turns invisible and takes off her clothes, then pushes her way through. Reed and Johnny then pick up her clothes, and go themselves. As in, walking through the crowd.

Which raises several questions. Why does Sue need to get invisible in the first place? The guys didn't need to be invisible, and her invisibility doesn't help her anyway, as she has to push her way through the crowd. Why aren't her clothes made invisible? Given how her powers are described as working (she bends light around her) and that she's always been able to make other things things invisible in the comics, it makes no story sense.

These problems are all over the place. The climactic battle doesn't really work, and the origin/adventure balance is way off. Look at the best comic book origin movies: Superman, X-Men, and Spider-Man. They use the first act for the origin, act two introduces the villain and his evil plan and has the initial confrontation, and act three the final confrontation. Or, roughly 1/3 origin story, 2/3 adventure. FF is more like 3/4 origin 1/4 adventure.

Now that the've established the premise, and gotten past the "learning about their powers" phase in this movie, I'm hoping for a second one that will do a much better job on the adventure part.

Aw, c'mon, a reason for guys to fantasize about an invisible naked Jessica Alba rubbing her way through a crowd, really needs no plot justification. :D

Hmm. I always thought that Doom never had any special powers. Wasn't he just some guy with a cool looking suit and loads of cash to invest into R & D?

And yet in this movie, he could absorb electricity.

Doom is a scientific genius of nearly Reed's caliber (though nobody in the Marvel Universe is his equal), probably is Tony Stark's equal. He's also a medium level sorcerer. His armor was made of some kind of mystical metal until recently. In the most recent arc, he consumed the life energy of the woman he loved as a young man and used her skin to fashion "leather" armor as part of a scheme to kill the FF (he hates Reed).

*gives Gilda the Evil Eye!* :D
I really want to see the Corman version.


/hates me some dialup

Perhaps a spoiler? Spoiler: The thought of Jess Alba naked was the pinnacle of the movie for most, I'd guess. Espically when she beautifully reappeared momentarily in her undergarments.

havent seen this movie yet, is batman a lot better?

Alba hurt this movie because there was no way she could play a convincing Sue Storm. She's hot and all...but they should have done some better casting.

agree about Alba, she has no business acting. She should just stick to being a pin-up model.

Batman Begins is much, much better than Fantastic Four. Based on my reading on critic's sites and comic book sites, the hard core fans are very enthusiastic, while the critics generally are lukewarm or outright hate it. I'm a hard core fan of the comics, and even I didn't like it much. I'm still hoping it'll be successful, though so that now the origin and the obligatory Dr. Doom story has been done, they can have a good visual villain and concentrate on the adventure part. I'm still hoping for a good movie the second time through.

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I didn't like the portrail of Doom at all, and I think the movie would have done just as well if he wasn't tied into the FF's origin, and Reed didn't have money problems. It would have been better if the characters didn't spend half the movie wearing the Von Doom name on their clothes.

Gilda, I agree with your review completely. It was worth a few chuckles, an it was fun. I think if you're not a fan of the comic, you'll see fewer of the flaws. Ignorance being bliss and all that...

One more thing... there was a scene where Reed is on the toilet, and he reaches into a closet to get some toilet paper... I'm not sure about the regular Marvel U, but I know Ultimate Reed doesn't have any organs, and therefore does not poo.


Edit: I have something to add. I've heard FF2 has been approved, and it's underway in the preprod stages. Who should be the next villain? Mole man would be too easy to mess up. Galactus might be too shallow, and I think they'd screw up his origin or something... I've been reading FF for a good year or so faithfully, so I don't know a whole lot of their dedicated baddies.

Let's see, for the first few years, they reused Dr. Doom every six to eight issues. Other than him, there are the Skrulls, the Sub-Mariner, the Impossible Man, the Frightful Four, the Mole Man and his mole people, the Puppet Master, the Mad Thinker and his awesome android, Diablo (a sorceror with the Philosopher's stone, which can transform matter), the Molecule Man, and Galactus.

I'm thinking that of the regular recurring villains, the Skrulls could work. A reworking of their first appearance could work. They imitate the Fantastic Four to discredit them as a method of preparing Earth for invasion. Movie makers love having people imitating others, and having skrulls, shapefhifters, makes for a bunch of good possibilities.

Or maybe go with two villains, skrulls and the Puppet Master. The Sub-Mariner could work, but they may want to save him to use as a good guy later on.

I just saw it this weekend and I enjoyed it purely on a fun level. I'm not a huge FF fan, but it seemed accurate enough to keep me happy... well for the FF anyway. Doom was way off, and his voice totally didn't match his look. Before the movie, the theater was showing clips from the Corman FF and, as bad as that movie was, I liked that Doom more.

what crappy names of the Fantastic Four too.

The Thing
Mr. Fantastic
The Invisible Woman
The Human Torch

wow, at least something kinda catchy like... Miss Invisible something that kinda rhymes

Terrible movie.
Nice jumpsuit.


Mr Mephisto

Haha, I liked the original fantasic 4 comic books but this movie didn't look very good. only reason i would see it is for jessica alba.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Four#Villains" target="_blank">list of FF villains</a>
there really weren't that many interesting FF things. there were a decent number of crossovers though.

p.s.: the movie sucked.

Jessica wasn't that good in Sin City either...very pretty but not much of an actress.

I agree. I love her, but I hate her acting. I'm gonna wait for the dvd.