Just got out of the film awhile ago (caught a 12:01am showing) and the theater was packed. While the first film had its flaws, I never despised it like everyone else did. Fantastic Four, even as a superhero concept, is just wacky. The movies do a good job of trying to relay all of this in live action form. Once again, I refer you to this mess, which hopefully will skew your opinion of the current Fantastic Four films in a more positive direction. The effects were good, in some places I felt Mr. Fantastic's effects weren't as good as in the first film. They pulled off Silver Surfer really well however, about as good as you probably could. Incorporation of Galactus into the storyline didn't feel too "out there" considering the rest of the film, which was on-par with the first in terms of how suspended your disbelief must be in order to enjoy it. Galactus was actually pretty freakin' scary, and I kid you not, at times reminded me of V'Ger, not to mention John Ottman's use of an electronic effect in the music that vaguely reminded me of the Blaster Beam from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Go John, nice inside joke, if it was intended.

At 90 minutes, I really enjoyed the movie. Perfect length, never get bored, and to top it off, John's score, while probably not completely honored in the way John intended, worked impeccably well with the picture. You'll walk out of the theater humming Silver's theme. Oh, and the entire title sequence felt like a rip from Superman Returns, almost word for word, just different context. Fade in. Starscape. Planet explodes. Silver bolt of energy slingshots out from the explosion. We follow it through the universe until we arrive at... oh my. Earth. Tada. All the while accompanied by familiar sci-fi flying title cards. Despite its origins, it worked well, and served the film. It was distracting for about 2 seconds. Stan Lee makes a charming, if not totally expected cameo a 1/4 of the way through the film.

--Brian

the references to the Blaster Beam are nice to hear.... :-)

Also, Silver Surfer was fine IMO. He was doing the job he always does for Galactus, and the Fantastic Four unraveled that, which for more than 75% of the film was a pretty big mystery. For fans of the comic I can see how this might be a bit annoying, but introducing the Surfer any other way would have just seemed ridiculous. The film's already ridiculous enough, attempting to make it all "make sense" within the rules of the world.

Galactus was also great, again, IMO. Toward the end of the film when you see the supposed destruction of the cloud, you see a faint visual hint at Galactus' mantle. To think that the resemblance of what we were all expecting, was some how hidden within that nebulous form, well, that to me is just cool. The idea of "a giant sentinel with a huge helmet with antennas" being fully realized on-screen would have been so silly, so over-the-top, it would have caused the already-teetering-toward-wackiness story to lose all credibility with its audience. Personally, I believe this was a smart move and made the movie more enjoyable. Some things work better in the comic book medium. Galactus as a giant sentinel is one of them. Miss that rendition? Read the comic or watch the cartoon. Those ideas flourish within those mediums.

Let's keep in mind that this is, after all, a Fantastic Four movie. Some superhero movies lend themselves to being more believable live action productions than others. This film, however, requires you completely surrender yourself to it. Leave the critic at the door. The Fantastic Four are one of the wackiest superhero teams in comic book history. No amount of good filmmaking is going to realize these characters in a way that necessarily makes sense in the way that "Batman Begins" did. And would we really want it to? I think there's a fine line to walk when making a movie like this, and Tim Story, while not a fantastic director, did a serviceable job on FF:RotSS and ended up producing a generally exciting and satisfying sequel. On the whole, I did enjoy it more than the first. But I also enjoyed the first on the basis of everything I've said here.

Kudos to whoever decided the film should be 90 minutes. I think that works in its favor.

quote:

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Originally posted by TimT:
Wow Jeron I don't know what to say, other than...HaHaHaHaHaHaHa !!!

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Well I guess that was warranted

Clayton