"Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of false advertising since my lawsuit against the movie
The Neverending Story!"
The Fantastic Four.
I saw a free screening of
Fantastic Four last night. I went in with fairly low expectations. So in that aspect, the movie succeeded. It is by far the worst big budget comic book film I have every seen. Yes, worse than
Catwoman. Worse than
Batman & Robin. In fact it may be the worst comic book movie period. Worse than Dolph's
Punisher, worse than Hasselhoff's
Nick Fury. Pamela Anderson's
Barb Wire, Matt Salinger's
Captain America, ROGER CORMAN'S
FANTASTIC FOUR - you name it - worse, worse, worse, worse, worse!
Oh my fucking God! Plot holes all over the place. Cheesy dialogue. Painfully outdated references (Think MasterCard "Priceless" and
The Apprentice "You're Fired").
***Spoilers Below***
Look I don't like to spoil movies, but believe me, you can't spoil this turd. There are moments that are so hackey and poorly thought out you can't help but just laugh at them. The scene in which Ben's fiancee gives his ring back may seriously be the worst scene in movie history. It makes no sense from beginning to end. Just fucking ponderous. And the bar scene where Alicia Masters goes from Matt Murdock blind to Mr. Magoo blind in a matter of seconds would totally be the most inconsistent thing in the movie, but since it's in competition with a scene in which there is a monsoon in Brooklyn while bone dry in Manhattan, it's a tough call. Of course both might lose out to a scene in which Doom returns Ben Grimm (The Thing) to normal, knocks him out, but doesn't kill him in order for him to have an easier time killing Mr. Fantastic, and then later indicates, in order for his "plan" to be complete, he must now kill Ben Grimm. Good plan asshole. Glad you thought it out. The whole movie has scenes like this. Like Sue stripping down to sneak past the cops, which apparently wasn't necessary considering the fact that the other guys walked with her to get to the same destination at the same time!!!!! And don't get me started on a nurse seeing a man's temperature be over 200 and yet deciding instead of concern, it would be good to go skiing with him, and THEN after watching him catch fire and melt snow into a perfectly carved pool in the middle of a mountain, climb into the water with him. How she got back without hyperthermia is left to our imagination.
But the worst offense, and believe me, I have not even scraped the surface above, is that it's boring. The movie is like an hour and a half which is incredibly short for a hero flick, yet it feels like forever. And yet, so precious little superhero action. Seriously, I just watched
Mystery Men again and that was cram packed with action compared to this. And the science, which this movie tries to have a ton of, is piss poor.
Heat Vision and Jack poor. But at least those guys were doing it on purpose. These guys seem to use it as time filler. In fact there is so much non-action filler you start to wonder why they even bothered to put any in at all. Why not just make a screwball comedy. Hell, they have a "wacky roommate" montage. Why not just add a few dance numbers and call it good.
The people involved in this film should be fucking ashamed because this movie is good for no one. Not adults. Not kids. Not anybody. And Jessica Alba, the youngest, sexiest world renowned scientist since Dr. Christmas Jones should have fucking known better. She was in
Sin City, which is brilliant and perhaps second only to
Batman Begins in "getting it right". She should have walked. Even if she filmed
FF before
Sin City, which she may have, she should have walked. Seriously, she should have read that script and walked. These other actors don't know genre.
Dark Angel does.
I don't do this often, but I'm serious, I'm asking you, DON'T go see this movie. Let it bomb. Marvel needs to learn to be more protective of their properties and how they are used. Let them lose $100 million on this and maybe they will learn.
