DVD Watch: Fantastic Four

The Girl and I had a superpowered night yesterday, which was fitting since I had gotten stuck in a Wikipedia induced comic book research frenzy yesterday. It's interesting to go from reading about The Darkness video game to reading an entire synopsis of the Crisis of Infinite Earths by continuity king Alan Kistler.

So we ended up watching Fantastic Four. Talk about your mixed bag. The characters were handled fairly well. The special effects weren't too gratiutous. There was an actual attempt to bring some realism into the concept, with the world reacting to the mutations and Ben Grimm's handling of his somewhat horrific fate. Doom's makeover wasn't as bad as I dreaded, although it was fairly close.

There were, however, plot points which completely made no sense. It was either poorly written or poorly edited at points. Some minor spoilers follow. Like how Doom's IPO goes south because of the accident on the space station. That accident where everyone comes back unharmed? Doom's financial officers must have been ex-Enron material, because that's one fast multi-billion dollar collapse.

Or how about getting Sue Storm to strip in order to sneak her way into the crowd and then teleport everyone to the other side. Wait, Sue can't teleport people? Who cares! She took her shirt off!

My favorite though is Reed's magic apartment. First, we know that Reed is completely broke ... and yet he can build and power toys unlike man has ever seen. Then he builds a magnificent device which can apparently give, remove, enhance, or simply dilate someone's powers no matter how technically inept or randomly they use it. Get into the container or just break it open ... Reed's made this one foolproof.

I will say that despite some of the blatant silliness ... even the lower echelons of comic movies these days aren't so bad. I mean, yeah, some of the movie was groan-worthy ... but it was a decent popcorn film. It's a shame not every rendition can be Batman Begins ... but it could be worse. Heck, I'd watch this twice over compared to any of the Star Wars prequels.


tagged: dvd, movies, comics