Upon further reflection. I find I have a bit -- not a lot, just a bit -- more to say about the second FF movie.
And no, I don't know where this weird font'format shit is coming from.
But I actually did learn something from my old (some of you may rememeber) Fan-Fic Film! adventures. Which is...
When in doubt, consult the map.
Or: what made it popular once, is probably the only thing that can make it popular again.
Of course the sad thing about this movie is, it probably consulted the map about as any FF movie could have.
My hopes were raised when the FF find out they have to fly coach, and
Reed kind of sighs and says "that'll be fine"...I don't think anyone
could have asked for a more faithful bit of downtime FF business, and so it's
pretty good evidence that someone got what the whole thing was
supposed to be about, somewhere down the line.
Sorry, inadvertant haiku.
The action sequences, too -- there's nothing sweeter and breezier than
the FF using all their powers in combination, even though I despise
that sort of thing in (for example) the X-Men movies...the "putting up the
tent" thing. Bleah. But it's what the FF was made for, and it nails
the action side of character, so...
Why didn't I like this movie?
Simply put, and as I think I've said, it had too much pointless telegraphing, that wasted too
much time. The faithful FF downtime, and the occasional dizzy genius of
something like Reed's stretchy limbs bursting into flame, couldn't
counterbalance the plodding feel of the film's "filmy" bits, and the
heaping helping of unnecessarily generic Hollywood "beats" that someone
evidently thought it couldn't be a proper action movie without. At
times an interesting hint at what could have been pokes through the
chaff -- Johnny surprisedly notices that they're prisoners in Yakutsk
(Yakutsk?), for example, and for a moment you think we're going to see
something a bit more off-beat than we might otherwise expect from a
lock-up/escape scene...but then it fizzles. Any time the FF are locked
in a room together, something should be going snap crackle and pop, but
here it doesn't, because everything is doomed to revert to standard
action-movie programming. It simply is not played smart enough.
And New York is grossly underplayed -- played too smart? -- just as it was in the first movie.
And Reed's Revenge Of The Nerds speech is horribly out of place, to say the least.
And why even bother casting Andre Braugher as your Army guy, if all you want him to be is a stupid jackass? Does anyone ever look at Andre
Braugher and think "here's a stupid jackass if I ever saw one"?
This whole font/formatting thing is really irritating, huh? Bear with me. Almost done.
This really was a shame. Clearly, somebody meant well somewhere along the line. There are parts of this movie where Wyatt Wingfoot would not
have been out of place. So let's just hope
that when the Puppet Master shows up, he's
white;
I mean is there any better place to admit the existence of blended families in America, than in a Fantastic Four film?
This almost had to happen. Any filmmaker who has the real FF in mind is inevitably going to meet a ton of resistance.
And there's only one way out of that: just make it a kid's movie. Dump Johnny's dick jokes. Have everyone act a little stupid, but this time
On purpose.
And leave the laboured adult stuff behind.
There's a good movie to be made there.
Doom could be the only adult, with an adult's compromised reasoning and innate lack of heroism.
Don't get Johnny to "grow up". Have him wake up, instead.
Kids can be smart, too, you know.
I think I'm done.
