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One of my friends treated me to this yesterday. As a Fantastic Four movie it bombed. Having said that, I went in with a different viewpoint. Mine was that this is a movie that just uses the names and powers with nothing else being the same. Viewed in that light it was not too bad. Not too good, but not too bad. It was much, much, much, much, much better than the movie adaptation of Eragon. Having said that, I would Redbox or Netflix the movie.
Note - I am a BIG Fantastic Four fan and am disappointed that they did not make the 3rd and 4th Fantastic Four movies. I wanted to see Namor's smug ass get kicked by Reed and co. And I wanted to see Galactus in the flesh.
Edit - I added a few "much"es to my Eragon comment. The Eragon book was good, the Eragon movie sucked.
Well. Watched for review purposes. I was right. The casting wasn't the issue. Everything else is. Irredeemable pile of s*&* doesn't even begin to cover it.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Yeah, I had no issue with the casting.
The problem wasn't even the changes they made from the source material (though I probably would have still grumbled about them excluding Susan from the adventure).
The real issue with the film is that it's boring. Easily a third of the film (maybe more) is taken up by the construction of the teleporter. They finally get their powers, and then a bunch more nothing happens. At some point a year passes, for no apparent reason and to very little effect.
We finally get to a big 'F4 using their powers' action scene, only to realize it's the climax of the film. This is it. There is no more.
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We finally get to a big 'F4 using their powers' action scene, only to realize it's the climax of the film. This is it. There is no more.
Was it at least a teamwork scene, like the action scene at the end of the first movie, where all four used their powers for one coordinated stunt (involving fire, force fields, water, etc.)? 'Cause while the first FF movie lacked team action scenes, IMO (just the bridge accident and then the climax, really), at least there was a deliberate attempt to arrange for a teamwork display for the big finale, and that I appreciated, since the Four are kind of meant to be a family and work together like a (to steal the oft-used quote from the comic) 'well-oiled machine.'
That was, for me, a bigger let-down with the second movie than cloud-Galactus, the big 'teamwork' scene being 'let's have the popular actor's character get all the powers of the four and play Super-Skrull, instead of having actual teamwork win the day, like those so-called X-Men movies in which everything is done by shirtless Hugh Jackman, guest-starring some other X-peeps...'
We finally get to a big 'F4 using their powers' action scene, only to realize it's the climax of the film. This is it. There is no more.Was it at least a teamwork scene, like the action scene at the end of the first movie, where all four used their powers for one coordinated stunt (involving fire, force fields, water, etc.)? 'Cause while the first FF movie lacked team action scenes, IMO (just the bridge accident and then the climax, really), at least there was a deliberate attempt to arrange for a teamwork display for the big finale, and that I appreciated, since the Four are kind of meant to be a family and work together like a (to steal the oft-used quote from the comic) 'well-oiled machine.'
It could have been better but, for the most part, it was a decent teamwork scene. It at least showed a bit of promise.
And that's part of the disappointment of this movie. It shows glimmers of promise here and there, only to have them fizzle.
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Funny enough, Reckless, that was one of my friend's reaction as well. This would have been a pretty good TV pilot, since it sets up the world, who these characters are, their relations to each other, and stories that could play out over the course of several more hours of television. What it did not do is tell an engaging story for two hours.
Honestly, though, maybe I was expecting something much worse than I got, but I couldn't actually summon up much hate for it. I was ready to hate Hacker!Doom, but he didn't really frustrate me that much. I was ready to hate the "Sue Storm is adopted" story, but they played it pretty well also. That's really the great failure of this offering - nothing is truly horrendous, but at the same time, absolutely nothing really stands out. The first act ends about how you expect it to - the accident happens, and the team gets their powers. However, the great failing is that we really don't get any scenes where the team uses their powers. Johnny flies around on fire, but doesn't do anything. Reed stretches to escape Area 57, but is captured a few scenes later, so that didn't really do anything either. Sue learns to use her powers, but all she does is float around in a force field bubble. The only one that does use his powers is Ben, but we only see AARs of him in the field - we don't see him doing anything active. Even in the scene where he brings in Reed, the fight is over in about fifteen seconds. The only time they actually do anything remotely superheroic is in the final scene, where they remember Doom is still around and he returns to the film.
It's a baffling story, and not one that will be remembered. I'm really hoping something can be resolved with the FF in much the same way that Spidey is now in the MCU. Fox managed to revitalize their X-Men franchise, but this one has always been on life support. It might be time to call it.
I went to see this on opening night and had the same reaction as the OP. I am very disappointed that Hollywood continues to refuse to properly adapt these characters when there are sixty years of great stories waiting to be adapted.
The crowd was literally silent from about the half hour mark on and the entire movie became a slog to sit through. Very disappointing. I may go see Ant-man again just to wash the taste out of my mouth.
Saw it yesterday. It was pretty bad, mostly for reasons already covered here. One thing I was willing to give them a pass on was Victor's environmental suit becoming fused with his body; outside of someone like Iron Man it was going to be hard to explain actual armor, especailly any that (despite being high-tech) looked Medieval. Pre-transformation Victor was pretty lame, his only character elements being a growing jealousy of Reed for having (1) made the dimensional travel idea work, and (2) apparently attracted Sue's attention.
Post-transformation Doom was a total snooze fest. So he walks down a few hallways, effortlessly blasting doors, killing people who have no way of slowing him down, much less harming him; then it's back to Planet Zero where he does a little pointless terraforming and opens a gate to Earth where he evidently plans to suck in 5.972 sextillion metric tons of matter and convert it to energy...in an environment whose native energy is somehow not reduced by usage, so why does he need any more?
I want to see more diversity in comics and comic-based movies, but am not a fan of change for the sake of change, so when I first heard about the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm I wasn't thrilled, but he was easily the best of the five main characters. That may be damning him with faint praise, though. Reed was not well cast. Kate Mara was fine but there wasn't a lot for Sue to do beyond tracking Reed down (within a few hours, but not starting until a year after he left) and then generating flying force bubbles. Ben was practically a non-entity, his main contribution to the whole story being a source for spare parts for pre-adoldescent Reed's garage tinkering.
The save-the-world ending wasn't great but was fairly typical of superhero and/or megadisaster films, so...fine, whatever. The "deal with the government" ending after that was just absurd: We're dangerously superpowered people -- which you know because you wanted to use us as military assets -- who now refuse to work for you, but you're going to fund us without limit, and anything we develop will belong to us.
On the one hand, I am so very tired of reboots to the FF franchise, but on the other hand I definitely do not want to see a sequel to this version. Hopefully it will be allowed to die so the fights can revert and...fourth time's the charm? (I'm ignoring "Rise of the Silver Surfer" in the count, since it wasn't a reboot, but am including the unreleased Corman travesty.)
It's years too late now, especially since she's already played Emma Frost, but I had thought for a while that January Jones would have made a decent Sue Storm. Full disclosure: I've pretty much ignored the Ultimate universe at Marvel, and have no idea what the FF are like over there.
Full disclosure: I've pretty much ignored the Ultimate universe at Marvel, and have no idea what the FF are like over there.
For the most part, Ultimate FF was pretty good. Playing on the wunderkind trope of super-science was a nice alternative to the original FF's distinguished lab coat dude with beautiful young assistant trope. It's worth checking out.
I've been reading comics for...let's see...47 or 48 years now, and although I don't care for endless repetition of plots, and do support character growth and development, I tend toward the "wholesale change is bad" mindset. With that [you may say limited] mindset, I prejudged the Ultimate universe as a stupid idea -- or rather, treating it as it were somehow the "real" Marvel Universe as a stupid idea.
My distaste for that shift in focus turned me off Marvel some years ago, much as I got turned off DC by their constant reboots starting with Infinite Crisis in 2005. (I'd rather they hadn't done Zero Hour in 1994, either; but I kept reading after that.) For me, Spiderman is Peter Parker, not Miles Morales; Janet van Dyne is the W.A.S.P. Wasp, not the Asian girl whose name escapes me; Ray Palmer is the Atom, not Ryan Choi. Hell, I still think of Kyle Rayner as the upstart new kid who thinks he's the Green Lantern of Sector 2814, when everyone knows it's really Hal Jordan. I might at some point read some Ultimate Universe titles as ongoing What If--? or alternate universe tales, but I will never give the Ultimate Universe as a whole a fair shake.
There's not much in comics I'm reading these days that's not an indie; the few exceptions published by Marvel and DC aren't part of their mainstream continuities. I am watching the various Marvel/DC movies and TV shows, though.
I guess this isn't the right thread for it, but maybe someone can explain Battleworld to me? I read the original Secret Wars series years ago, and (unfortunately for me) the recent Convergence series from DC, so the concept of a cobbled-together planet is fine. How exactly did Dr. Doom get to be God? I had no intention of trying to follow all the different series that tied into that, so I've just been reading the few whose settings I thought would be interesting: Thors, Squadron Supreme, Years of Future Past and 1872..or '74, or whatever year it is. And there's no setup for any of them, you just get dropped into a reality that's "always" been that way.
DC's Convergence annoyed me to no end, mainly because the ending was just a bunch of hand waving that set up their new status quo for their books.
There is a key point in there, that would make for an amazing story and instead of telling it they just kind of say "They did it, now all is right with the universe"
It was infuriating. I wanted to see that story. Instead all I got was "here is our new set up."
I dropped most of my DC books as a result (Only getting Earth 2 and He-Man right now). Might pick up new titles down the road but right now I'm still annoyed.
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With you few exceptions, you can assume that the Ultimate version of any Marvel character is a dick when compared to their Earth-616 version.
There were a few characters that this didn't apply too.
Spidey (Peter Parker)
Kitty Pryde
Human Torch
Iceman
Mary Jane Watson
Gwen Stacy
Basically, Aunt May's Halfway House for Orphaned Superheroes. (All of those characters were regulars in the Ultimate Spider-Man title in the months before Peter "died".)
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I might at some point read some Ultimate Universe titles as ongoing What If--? or alternate universe tales, but I will never give the Ultimate Universe as a whole a fair shake.
I'm not a huge fan of the majority of it, but in my opinion, Ultimate Spider-Man, at least throughout entire Peter Parker run of that title, was superior to any of the 616 Spidey titles. I can't really comment on Miles Morales, as I haven't read much of his run.
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I would if it were something that mattered, rather than a Change.org petition.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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People sign this please
"Critics and fans of the film panned the movie and performed poorly at the box office."
If they're panning a movie they're supposedly a fan of, then it's no wonder the fans are performing poorly at the box office!
No, they could continue to make bad movies as long as they want throw money down a hole. That was the issue with Sweetpea and D&D movie rights. They would have to shelve making movies for a certain time (as was done with Daredevil) or cede the rights back.
Couldn't the right owner try to sue them to revoke license with rationale that the flop-makers are damaging the franchise and reduce its value with bad PR?
How exactly did Dr. Doom get to be God? I had no intention of trying to follow all the different series that tied into that, so I've just been reading the few whose settings I thought would be interesting: Thors, Squadron Supreme, Years of Future Past and 1872..or '74, or whatever year it is. And there's no setup for any of them, you just get dropped into a...
WOW. Thejeff did a pretty good job of skimming the surface of how, but this whole thing actually has it's roots in Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run (as well as the Fantastic Foundation aka FF) then carried over into his runs on BOTH New Avengers and Avengers. He's been laying out a pretty complex story of opposing philosophies and how heroes deal with facing inevitable defeat and destruction of everything that they care about. As well as the lengths some of them will go to try and save their world (s).
Really strong characterizations of Reed Richards (and his compulsion to SOLVE EVERYTHING), Tony Stark (and how is futurist thinking often backfires HORRIFICALLY) Black Panther (his conflict between wanting to do what is RIGHT but having to do what is NECCESSARY) and Namor (who simply doesn't have that conflict AT ALL.)
New Avengers is the stronger book but really to get the full picture you should read both as they kinda merge in the last 4 or 5 issues and lead directly into SECRET WARS.
I'm not reading any of the side titles myself just the main book. And they main book is fantastic. It is by far the best of Marvel's event books in the last decade. EASILY.
That's just me though.
I only started picking it up in the Avengers run. Didn't know about the FF. I liked the lead up quite a bit. I'm not at all sold on the actual Secret Wars/Battleworld stuff.How exactly did Dr. Doom get to be God? I had no intention of trying to follow all the different series that tied into that, so I've just been reading the few whose settings I thought would be interesting: Thors, Squadron Supreme, Years of Future Past and 1872..or '74, or whatever year it is. And there's no setup for any of them, you just get dropped into a...WOW. Thejeff did a pretty good job of skimming the surface of how, but this whole thing actually has it's roots in Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run (as well as the Fantastic Foundation aka FF) then carried over into his runs on BOTH New Avengers and Avengers. He's been laying out a pretty complex story of opposing philosophies and how heroes deal with facing inevitable defeat and destruction of everything that they care about. As well as the lengths some of them will go to try and save their world (s).
Really strong characterizations of Reed Richards (and his compulsion to SOLVE EVERYTHING), Tony Stark (and how is futurist thinking often backfires HORRIFICALLY) Black Panther (his conflict between wanting to do what is RIGHT but having to do what is NECCESSARY) and Namor (who simply doesn't have that conflict AT ALL.)
New Avengers is the stronger book but really to get the full picture you should read both as they kinda merge in the last 4 or 5 issues and lead directly into SECRET WARS.
I'm not reading any of the side titles myself just the main book. And they main book is fantastic. It is by far the best of Marvel's event books in the last decade. EASILY.
That's just me though.
I'm not sold on it either. The lead in material was OK, but now it's a weird conglomeration of What Ifs, with the added overtones that "everything you know and like is going to change!", which doesn't really do it for me.
But will it be more coherent? DC never managed that. Crisis On Infinite Earths was very entertaining, but an utter failure with respect to its stated purpose of "simplifying" things. Writers were contradicting each other almost immediately afterward. In eliminating a multiverse that was complex but understandable, DC had changed the rules of the game...but there was internal confusion about what the new rules were.
Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, 52, Flashpoint, New52, Convergence...which of these produced something more coherent than the last?
I've not seen the movie yet, but based on what I've read from you folks who have, has every other studio besides Marvel failed to realize people go to superhero movies to see the superheroes do superhero stuff?
I mean, a 2 hour long movie in which 15 minutes of it is the hero using their powers is not why I go, anyway.
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Oh, I agree completely. It's inherently less coherent, since you're mixing characters with their own histories together without actually spelling out what the new histories are.
It's not really a full reboot, though, from my understanding. Their past histories will remain intact. If, for example, 616 Spider-Man ends up in the new universe, then his past history is the same as before (albeit, with the Brand New Day shenanigans being accounted for). If Ultimate Kitty Pryde survives into the new universe, her history in the Ultimate comics again remains intact. No character's past history is being overwritten. The characters aren't changing, but the multiverse around them is collapsing into a single unified universe.
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I am betting the new Marvel comic universe will be something like 80% the old 616, only with some popular Ultimate/Alternative Universe characters added (Miles, SpiderGwen), some reworking to make certain characters more similar to the MCU versions, and some retconning of unpopular directions for characters (i.e. Spiderman's faustian pack)
I thought that the continuing Spiderman would be the current Ultimate Spiderman... Michael Morales.Oh, I agree completely. It's inherently less coherent, since you're mixing characters with their own histories together without actually spelling out what the new histories are.It's not really a full reboot, though, from my understanding. Their past histories will remain intact. If, for example, 616 Spider-Man ends up in the new universe, then his past history is the same as before (albeit, with the Brand New Day shenanigans being accounted for). If Ultimate Kitty Pryde survives into the new universe, her history in the Ultimate comics again remains intact. No character's past history is being overwritten. The characters aren't changing, but the multiverse around them is collapsing into a single unified universe.He's definitely going to be around. I'm not sure if Peter is. There's also a Spider Gwen and a few other things.
I do not believe they will write Peter out completely. If they attempt to do so, I guarantee they will bring him back one way or another.
Peter Parker and Miles Morales will both be around, although I don't think its clear what exactly Peter Parker will be doing.
I don't think they plan on keeping multiple versions of the same character around. So presumably there will be only one Kitty Pryde...I just don't know which one will be around.
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Do you folks have inside knowledge of the rights contract? Is there a clause saying if a film sucks you give up the rights?If that were true, the Roger Corman movie would never have been made. Rights are lost if they aren't used. There's no issue about them being used badly.
Trivia fact, this is also why TSR would publish the Dungeon Quest rpg every couple of years... to keep the rights.
Yeap, this was my understanding. Some folks were celebrating though as if this flop means a slam dunk case for Marvel to get the rights back.
Which just means they'll ignore the Ultimate Kitty for years on end.Cynical: No one's really known what to do with Kitty since she got replaced as the insert for their teen readers to crush on.
I heard they were making her the new Star Lord