He Said, She Said: The Fantastic Four Movie
WordGirl and I attended a special advance screening of the Fantastic Four movie last night and agreed to blog on it. No SPOILERS, WordGirl, so please be nice to the rabid fanboys by not revealing key plot points.
This movie gets quite a lot of things right, in the eyes of this FF fan:
1. The FF are a family, not a superhero team.
2. The characterization of Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny are in line with their modern interpretations. Johnny is particularly on target, and his relationship with Ben will be immediately familiar to comic book fans.
3. The FF's powers are not fully-formed after the accident which gave them to them---they take time to develop, and the team takes time to learn how to use them.
4. The FF is popular among New Yorkers, just like in the book.
5. Willy Lumpkin makes an appearance, and the Baxter Building features prominently.
6. The special effects work--the characters look much like they do in the comic book while using their powers.
7. The little character traits we love from the comic, such as absent-minded Reed ignoring Sue and falling asleep at his computer, are here. In abundance.
That said, the script does take liberties, some of which longtime fans will find jarring. Generally speaking, I felt that these changes worked in the context of the movie. After all, in Victor von Doom didn't appear in FF#1, from which this story is chiefly drawn, so changes had to be made to accommodate the FF's greatest villain.
The performances are quite solid, particularly Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm who strikes just the right note of weary frustration.
A very solid effort, and given that this movie is essentially an origin story, quite good. Had "Batman Begins" been the first Batman movie, we might not have given it such high marks (most of us remember the horrible Joel Schumacher movies). "Fantastic Four" is quite good, and I would place it behind only "Batman Begins" and "Spider-Man 2" in terms of recent superhero movies.
This movie gets quite a lot of things right, in the eyes of this FF fan:
1. The FF are a family, not a superhero team.
2. The characterization of Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny are in line with their modern interpretations. Johnny is particularly on target, and his relationship with Ben will be immediately familiar to comic book fans.
3. The FF's powers are not fully-formed after the accident which gave them to them---they take time to develop, and the team takes time to learn how to use them.
4. The FF is popular among New Yorkers, just like in the book.
5. Willy Lumpkin makes an appearance, and the Baxter Building features prominently.
6. The special effects work--the characters look much like they do in the comic book while using their powers.
7. The little character traits we love from the comic, such as absent-minded Reed ignoring Sue and falling asleep at his computer, are here. In abundance.
That said, the script does take liberties, some of which longtime fans will find jarring. Generally speaking, I felt that these changes worked in the context of the movie. After all, in Victor von Doom didn't appear in FF#1, from which this story is chiefly drawn, so changes had to be made to accommodate the FF's greatest villain.
The performances are quite solid, particularly Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm who strikes just the right note of weary frustration.
A very solid effort, and given that this movie is essentially an origin story, quite good. Had "Batman Begins" been the first Batman movie, we might not have given it such high marks (most of us remember the horrible Joel Schumacher movies). "Fantastic Four" is quite good, and I would place it behind only "Batman Begins" and "Spider-Man 2" in terms of recent superhero movies.
posted by Teflon at 12:48 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Wow. That's a pretty strong review.
I have already made the decision to avoid FF at all costs, because based on the trailer, it looks pretty awful to me.
Putting it right behind Batman Begins and Spidey 2 is no small thing. As comic flicks go, would you rank it behind X2 (super) and Sin City (an all-time fave) as well?
I guess a fair question is this: better or worse than Daredevil? I had such low expectations for DD based on word-of-mouth from friends and co-workers, that when I saw it I was actually pleasantly surprised. Maybe FF will work out to be the same way.
I hope that's the case, because those characters are too important to screw up.
I will await word from my brother-in-law, who operates this site and is (obviously) an enormous comic fan as well. He'll pull no punches with me if he thinks FF is lousy.
Now I'm curious though. If it's as good as you say, well I may have to hit the matinee this Sat....
Alex-
I enjoyed it. It's more of a popcorn movie than "Sin City" or "Batman Begins", and it's certainly not Grim n Gritty. I like it a bit better than the first "Spider-Man" movie. I prefer it to "X-Men" as well, which I enjoyed, but found a bit cluttered.
This is also a movie which hits the magical 8 to 80 demographic---it's a family flick, very much in keeping with the spirit of the original Lee-Kirby run.
That said, there have been changes made which diehard fans may take exception to---to me, they were made in an attempt to make the movie easier to understand for the moviegoers not up on their FF lore.
It is a much better movie than "Daredevil", which couldn't really tell whether it wanted to be the character as created by Stan Lee or as written by Frank Miller or Kevin Smith.
Fair enough, then. Maybe I will go check it out Saturday.
Fanboy story: my grandmother used to be John Byrne's neighbor, so I have a lot of Byrne FF stuff signed. I know signed comics aren't any more valuable here or there, but I remember at the time being blown away at getting to hang out and chat with Byrne.
Anyhow, if I see FF this weekend, I'll put up a review of my own at Noonzwire, which reminds me that I need to write my Batman review...
He was an alright guy.
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