Fantastic 4
So I'm delaying the NYC recap for a little later and insted I'm going to share my review of my most recent movie viewing: Fantastic Four. Before going I checked it out on RottenTomatoes.com, as I usually do with most movies, and noticed that it had received only a 25%. Now normally that would turn me off, but I was still in the mood for mindless entertainment. Now I must say that this wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen, and sure there were problems with it, but it was much better than the 25% it got. So I went back and looked at the complaints, only to find that it was the critics that tanked the rating. The most common claims were as follows:
1 - It doesn't stack up to Spiderman
2 - It doesn't stack up to Batman Begins
3 - Scientists can't be hot (i.e. Invisible Woman)
4 - Too much time on the origins of the characters
So let's approach these in reverse order...
4 - Too much time on the origins of the characters
You cannot possiblly claim this and say that Batman Begins was fantastic. That's as contradictory as it comes. Sure there was a bunch of time spent on the origin part, but you need that. You need some back story. All first run superhero movies have it. Look at Spiderman 1, The Hulk, etc. Hell Batman Begins spent most of the movie on it, and it's basically the 5th Batman movie (3rd good one).
3 - Invisible Woman was too hot
Well duh. I know she's a scientist, and there's the stereotype that scientists can't be hot, but she has to be. It's not believable that two men would be after her love if she was ugly. Plus this is a movie. You need eye candy. And although I didn't read too much of the Fantastic 4 comics, from what I did see I don't remember Mrs. Storm being a dog. Next!
2 - Of course it doesn't stack up to Batman Begins. Batman Begins was a dramatic action movie about a comic book. Fantastic 4 is an comic book action movie. Those are two very different things. As I have learned from Mr. Cross, you should rate movies based on what they are. This isn't an Oscar picture. It's a summertime fun movie. It may be true that even when it is compared to other comic book movies Fantastic 4 may not stand out as one of the tops, but it's not the bottom one either. However, trying to compare it to Batman Begins is as stupid as trying to compare it to Fightclub. I mean both Fantastic 4 and Fightclub were based on books of sorts, so why not! Hey, why not compare it to 12 Monkeys, both of those have numbers in the title!
1 - It's no Spiderman (or Spiderman 2)
Finally a semi-reasonable argument. The problem here is that the Spiderman pictures were (in my opinion at least) the hands down best comic book movies made. And just because a movie doesn't live up to the best movie ever made in that genre that doesn't mean that it's complete shit. Going by that reasoning Episode III deserves to be grouped with Eps. I and II. I have yet to find anyone who would agree with that one (besides the random Starwars hater who thinks that all the movies should be tossed out the window, but they don't count). But alas, the Starwars ratings is a post for another time, so back to the issue at hand.
Where does that leave us? Fantastic 4 may have its problem areas (Human Torch in an X-game type event?), but it's not all bad. True it's not the greatest comic book movie ever made, but it's still watchable. It may not deserve to be a high 80's or 90's movie on Rottentomatoes, but it doesn't deserve a 25% either.
RATING: Worth a cheap ticket (full price if you're in the mood or have a lot of money), worth a rental.