Tag Archives: Hugh Jackman
Vids I Dig 569: Filmento: ‘Days of Future Past’: How Time Builds Great Movies
Film Review: Movie 43 (2013)
Also known as: Truth or Dare (working title)
Release Date: January 1st, 2013 (Russia)
Directed by: Steven Brill, Peter Farrelly, Will Graham, Steve Carr, Griffin Dunne, James Duffy, Jonathan van Tulleken, Elizabeth Banks, Patrik Forsberg, Brett Ratner, Rusty Cundieff, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Steve Baker, Damon Escott
Written by: Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O’Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, Jonas Wittenmark
Music by: Christophe Beck, David J. Hodge, Leo Birenberg, Tyler Bates, Miles Moon, William Goodrum
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Leslie Bibb, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler, Josh Duhamel, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville, Justin Long, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Emma Stone, Jason Sudekis, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Common, Charlie Saxton, Will Sasso, Seth MacFarlane, Mark L. Young, Fisher Stevens, Beth Littleford, Julie Ann Emery, Chris Pratt, J.B. Smoove, Kieran Culkin, Bobby Cannavale, Patrick Warburton, Seann William Scott, Stephen Merchant, Snooki, Emily Alyn Lind, Julianne Moore (scene cut), Tony Shalhoub (scene cut), Bob Odenkirk (scene cut), Anton Yelchin (scene cut)
Relativity Media, Virgin Produced, GreeneStreet Films, 94 Minutes
Review:
“Excuse me, I’m gonna go do some Batman-ing.” – Fake Batman
I never wanted to see this movie and that was before I heard how bad it was when it came out. Also, the few people who seemed to like it were people that have historically had terrible recommendations in not just movies but just about everything in life.
Recently, I was told to watch it and I kind of just said fuck it because part of me was curious and wanted to know if this was as bad as I had heard it was.
It’s worse.
In fact, I can confidently say that this is the biggest waste of talent I have ever seen in a motion picture.
It’s so bad that it’s beyond atrocious. So much so, that I find it not just baffling that this film attracted so many big stars but I find it really unnerving.
Who greenlit this fucking thing? And how many terrible agents are there in Hollywood? Fire all of them!
Anyway, I had to start asking myself some questions while trying to work this film’s existence out in my brain:
- Is everyone in Hollywood actually insane?
- Do the Hollywood elite want all of us to commit seppuku?
- Do the Hollywood elite think that sucking their own assholes is a good use of time?
- Did this movie somehow leak over from a parallel dimension where Earth actually is Hell?
- Did all of these “artists” commit some unspeakable crime and this was secretly some sort of punishment for said crime?
- Did all of these people lose a bet?
- Was this movie actually the result of a writing contest for mental patients?
- Is this what people mean by “anti-humor”?
- Did the person who put up the money have some sort of Brewster’s Millions deal where they had to throw away money to get their full inheritance?
- Was this produced to debut on an earlier, failed attempt at CBS trying a streaming service?
I mean, those are all legitimate questions. In fact, I’d say that they’re more legitimate than this film.
This is the worst movie I’ve seen that was made for more than thirty dollars.
The film was full of crude jokes, none of which landed, and it offered up a bunch of gross out moments that just come across as Hollywood trying so hard to be edgy when in reality, they haven’t had their fucking balls in a long time.
Honestly, seeing how “politically correct” and “apologetic” the Hollywood elite have become since SJWs emerged and Cancel Culture took hold, this film feels like them desperately trying to get all the edgy shit out of their system before they all started their “I’m sorry, I’ll strive to do better” world tour.
Additionally, none of these gross out moments are all that effective if you’ve been a fan of ’70s and ’80s horror. Go watch Society and try again. Better yet, you shouldn’t have tried at all.
I think that film critic Robbie Collin said it best in his review of the movie:
“I was immediately overcome with a sudden rush of emotion: not amusement, anger or even mild irritation, but a profound and faintly tragic sense of pity.”
Speaking of reviews, let’s look at what all the big sites think. IMDb gives it a 4.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes gives it 5 percent from critics with 24 percent from the audience, Metacritic gives it an 18 percent and Richard Roeper referred to it as “the Citizen Kane of awful.”
In closing, I’ll simply state:
Rating: 0/10
Pairs well with: bad cavities and genital warts.
Film Review: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Also known as: X-Men 3, X-Men 3: The Last Stand (working titles), X3, X III: The Last Stand (alternative titles)
Release Date: May 22nd, 2006 (Cannes)
Directed by: Brett Ratner
Written by: Simon Kinberg, Zak Penn
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Music by: John Powell
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Shawn Ashmore, Aaron Stanford, Vinnie Jones, Patrick Stewart, Ben Foster, Ellen Page, Dania Ramirez, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bill Duke, Daniel Cudmore, Eric Dane, R. Lee Ermey, Ken Leung
The Donners’ Company, Marvel Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox, 104 Minutes
Review:
“Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you will ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live.” – Magneto
From memory, this was the worst X-Men film of the lot. Well, after about a dozen movies with spinoffs and whatnot, this one still takes the cake in that regard.
This really killed the film franchise, at least for its time. It wouldn’t bounce back until First Class rolled around and gave the series a bit of a soft reboot.
Here, we see the original trilogy of films come to an end and unfortunately, that end is a very unsatisfactory one. Granted, none of these films have aged particularly well and they actually feel quite dated now.
That’s not to say that some of the performances aren’t great or iconic, a few of them are. Specifically, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. This is probably also why they tried to find ways to include these guys in the X-Men films that followed during the reboot era.
The plot for this is pretty fucking atrocious and the film spends more time killing off beloved characters than trying to tell a good story. It’s like it went for shock and cheap emotional grabs but it failed in generating any real emotion because it all felt soulless and cheap.
I think the biggest issue with the film was that Bryan Singer left to make that big bust, Superman Returns. While Brett Ratner probably wasn’t a bad choice, the final product makes me feel like he was sort of just inserted into a movie that was already well into production and found himself in over his head.
The film is also pretty short when compared to the two chapter before it. It makes me wonder if a lot was left out of the final movie. It certainly feels like it’s lacking story, context and depth.
In the end, this is okay if you want to spend a little more time with these characters and if you turn your brain off, it has some neat moments, but overall, it’s a sloppy misfire.
Rating: 5.5/10
Pairs well with: the other films in the original X-Men trilogy.
Film Review: X2: X-Men United (2003)
Also known as: X2 (original title), X-Men II (working title), X² (alternative spelling)
Release Date: April 24th, 2003 (UK premiere)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris, David Hayter, Zak Penn, Bryan Singer
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Music by: John Ottman
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore, Alan Cumming, Brian Cox, Aaron Stanford, Kelly Hu, Daniel Cudmore
Marvel Enterprises, Donners’ Company, Twentieth Century Fox, 134 Minutes
Review:
“You know, outside the circus, most people were afraid of me. But I didn’t hate them. I pitied them. Do you know why? Because most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes.” – Nightcrawler
When this came out, I was pretty much blown away by it. Seeing it seventeen years later, not so much.
X2 is a film riddled with problems but it’s still good for what it is and for its era. It’s slightly better than its predecessor but after having just watched the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, it pales in comparison to the first two films in that series. In fact, I like the wonky Spider-Man 3 a hair bit more than this.
That being said, this does still have one of the greatest sequences in comic book movie history and that’s the part where the military squad attacks the X-Mansion, abducting the children and sending Wolverine and a few of the younger mutants fleeing into the night. I especially liked the inclusion of Colossus in this scene but that also made me wonder why he didn’t come back into the picture because he would’ve been helpful during the final battle. But I guess someone’s got to protect the kids hiding out who knows where.
Anyway, this is a film that is too driven by plot convenience and poor execution of those conveniences.
For instance, Storm can unleash dozens of tornadoes on military fighter jets but no one is worried about the innocent people living on the ground? And she does this while flying a high tech jet. Where was this immense wind power when the jet was going to be hit by raging water?
Which brings me to another poor plot convenience moment that saw Jean Grey have to push back a raging river while trying to lift the parked jet in an effort to save her friends. She’s powerful as fuck, why couldn’t she have just lifted the jet? An hour earlier, she stopped a missile with her mind. And getting back to Storm, where’s that wind power in this scene? Did you not pick up your power-ups in the final level?
I know I’m being pretty nitpicky here but these moments could’ve been shot better, explained better and just not been as stupid and devoid of logic. It seems like really lazy writing and if you needed to kill off Jean for the story, there are better ways to do it and they still could’ve had her sacrifice herself for those she loves. It just felt cheap and baffling.
This also must’ve been made in the era where they didn’t sign actors to multi-film deals because they spent so much time developing Nightcrawler but then he’s nowhere to be seen in the third film. His arc from the original X-Men trilogy is left incomplete. That just adds to the overall sloppiness of this film franchise. And it sucks because Alan Cumming was great as Nightcrawler and he was one of the high points in this trilogy.
The overall story in the film is pretty good though. I thought that the big finale was too long and could’ve been whittled down somewhat but it moves at a good, brisk pace.
Also, the set design, cinematography and overall look of the picture was a big step up from the previous one.
Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan and Hugh Jackman kill it in just about every scene but Jackman really is the scene stealer, which is impressive when you think about where he was at in his film career in 2003 versus Stewart and McKellan.
In the end, this is still a decent way to waste a few hours but it’s not the great, epic film I saw it as when I was young and didn’t have such refined taste. Also, its since been overshadowed by the Raimi Spider-Man pictures, Nolan’s Batman movies and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Rating: 7.25/10
Pairs well with: the other films in the original X-Men trilogy.
Film Review: X-Men (2000)
Also known as: X-Men: The Movie (working title), X-Men 1.5 (longer cut)
Release Date: July 12th, 2000 (Ellis Island premiere)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: David Hayter, Tom DeSanto, Bryan Singer
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Music by: Michael Kamen
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Ray Park, Tyler Mane, Anna Paquin, Shawn Ashmore
Marvel Enterprises, Donners’ Company, Twentieth Century Fox, 104 Minutes
Review:
“[to Senator Kelly] You know, people like you are the reason I was afraid to go to school as a child.” – Mystique
This was the movie that really got modern superhero films off the ground. It became the launching pad for several sequels, spin offs and what eventually became the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve sat down and watched this one though. Compared to what is the norm today, twenty years later, this one feels really small and you can immediately tell that it had a smaller budget than what similar films today have.
That’s because this movie was a big risk in 1999 when it was filmed. Comic book movies other than the two Tim Burton Batman films and the first two Christopher Reeve starring Superman pictures just didn’t have a great track record and most of them were made deliberately cheesy and campy. The sequels to the films I just mentioned also fell victim to this creative misstep.
X-Men, however, took itself seriously and it succeeded because of that.
Granted, it’s a pretty flawed film with a lot of creative choices I wasn’t a fan of. These choices would actually go on to hinder the rest of the X-Men movies that Fox made but I think it was probably hard to see anything beyond just this movie when it was being made.
The acting is pretty solid for the most part but the heavy lifting in this chapter is primarily done by Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Anna Paquin. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t bad dialogue and bad acting, there is, but the high points greatly outshine the low ones.
Still, this is a weak adaptation. It chose a strange mix of characters to start with and by choosing these characters, the series sort of fucked itself going forward. It also altered the origins of most of the characters pretty drastically and it set some things in stone that would later lead to the film series’ continuity getting really screwed up. Some of these problems became even more clear after revisiting this.
The general plot is also wonky and weird and I’m not a big fan of it. The whole MacGuffin machine that Magneto wants to use to turn people into mutants was goofy as hell and it sabotaged the initial realism that this picture seemed to have. Well, it was as realistic as a film about superhero mutants could be before we got a hokey old timey comic book superweapon introduced.
From memory, but I’ll find out in a week or so, the sequel was much better. It delved deeper into the lore and tried to get past some of the missteps here.
In the end, this isn’t bad, by any means, it just isn’t as great as I felt that it was in 2000. Sure, it has issues but it also opened the floodgates for the superhero genre to enter the cinematic medium in a more serious way.
Rating: 7/10
Pairs well with: the other films in the original X-Men trilogy.
Film Review: X-Men: First Class (2011)
Release Date: May 25th, 2011 (New York City premiere)
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn, Sheldon Turner, Bryan Singer
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Music by: Henry Jackman
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Plat, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Jason Flemyng, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi, Caleb Landry Jones, Zoe Kravitz, Michael Ironside, Ray Wise, James Remar, Hugh Jackman (cameo)
Marvel Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, The Donners’ Company, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Ingenious Film Partners, Twentieth Century Fox, 131 Minutes
Review:
“I can’t stop thinking about the others out there, all those minds that I touched. I could feel them, their isolation, their hopes, their ambitions. I tell you we can start something incredible, Erik. We can help them.” – Professor Charles Xavier
While I haven’t seen this picture since it was in the theater, it left a great impression on me and gave me hope for the future of the X-Men franchise in film. Granted, we’d get two pretty good movies and two mostly poopy ones, but the weak whimpering farts of the second half of the prequel series of films didn’t take away my satisfaction with this one and its followup, Days of Future Past.
It was nice to revisit this, all these years later, as it holds up fairly well, even if I’m not as optimistic about the franchise now.
To start, this was much better than the last of the first run of films, X-Men: The Last Stand. That movie left such a bad taste in my mouth that anything better would have made me happy. Luckily, this was a lot better but I think that my original impression was a bit over-inflated due to the precedent set before it.
That’s not to say that this isn’t solid, it is. This is, in fact, a damn good superhero film and one of the best in the schizophrenic X-Men series.
What really sets this one on a pedestal is that the story was pretty good and the acting, at least from the core actors, was convincing and impressive. I didn’t know much about Michael Fassbender, before this, and I wasn’t yet sold on James McAvoy, but this picture cemented both men as two of my favorites over the last decade.
On the flip side of that, you also had some really weak performances from January Jones, who felt out of place and awkward, as well as the younger actors in the cast. A few of them would become better actors over time but they all mostly felt green, here.
I did like the inclusion of Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt in this, as well as character actors Michael Ironside, James Remar and Ray Wise. While the character actors had small roles, they added an extra level of legitimacy and coolness to the picture.
I loved that this took place in the ’60s, tied to the Cuban Missile Crisis and also went back into Nazi Germany to establish the relationship between Magneto and Sebastian Shaw. The general look and aesthetic of the film were really good and it actually fits with the previous X-Men films, despite those being set over thirty years later. One thing Fox did well, while they managed the X-Men movie franchise, was that they kept everything sort of visually consistent.
My only real gripe about the film is that there isn’t enough emphasis on the actual “first class” of students, which this film is named after. They all felt generic and disposable, cast to play archetypes and nothing more. Sure, some of them are major comic book characters but they didn’t feel that way in this movie.
Overall, this was a good, fresh, soft reboot of the series. It eventually ties to the older films and the series becomes an even bigger continuity clusterfuck but at least this generation of the franchise started out on the right foot.
Rating: 8.25/10
Pairs well with: the other Fox X-Men films.
Film Review: The Wolverine (2013)
Also known as: Wolverine 2 (working title), Wolverine: Inmortal (Spanish language title), Wolverine: Samurai (Japan)
Release Date: July 16th, 2013 (London premiere)
Directed by: James Mangold
Written by: Mark Bomback, Scott Frank
Based on: Wolverine by Chris Claremont, Frank Miller
Music by: Marco Beltrami
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Famke Janssen, Will Yun Lee, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Brian Tee, Patrick Stewart (cameo), Ian McKellan (cameo)
Marvel Entertainment, The Donners’ Company, TSG Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, 126 Minutes, 138 Minutes (Extended Edition)
Review:
“Your grandfather called me a ronin, a samurai without a master. He said I was destined to live forever, with no reason to live.” – Logan
The Wolverine did a pretty good job of making up for the mostly terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. Also, it was the film I wanted instead of Origins because when I first heard that they planned on a solo Wolverine film, I immediately hoped that they would tap into his Japan stories. I just had to wait a few more years for that, I guess.
Everything about this film is really good, except two things.
The first, is that it was drawn out a bit too much. I felt like it could have been whittled down by twenty minutes or so and had a much better flow to it.
The second, is the villains. I loved the story but the baddies were weak as hell and really uninteresting.
Viper has never been a character that’s been a big deal in the comics and I’ve never really cared about her. In this, she just never felt like a real threat. She spits acid but in a film where the hero is Wolverine, who heeled from a nuclear bomb blast in the first five minutes. So now I’m supposed to worry about him getting acid spit in his face?
The other villain is a more well-known character from the comics, the Silver Samurai. However, he isn’t really the Silver Samurai here, he’s just an old dying Japanese billionaire wearing a mecha suit. Sure, the suit is adamantium but whatever. Tear that shit open like a tin can and squash the dude’s head like a grape. And again, he’s just not the real Silver Samurai.
Getting back to Viper, she stuck out like a sore, disfigured thumb. The reason why is because her acting was abominable. Everyone else in this film gave great performances. I don’t think it’s her lack of experience in acting that’s the issue, it’s just that her poor performance is greatly contrasted by how good everyone else is in this. She would blend in to a lesser film but every scene that she is in here, is bogged down by her performance. It really hindered key moments in the film.
Getting to the positives, there are more of those.
The story is great and I do love how it develops and evolves. It could have used better pacing but once you get to Japan, things really pick up and there is just a bit in the middle that could have been edited down because I didn’t need as much attention given to the romance story as this film felt it needed.
All of the action sequences are executed superbly, most of the CGI is pretty good and Hugh Jackman proved that he is perfect as this character, even if hardcore fans still complain that he’s too tall.
I also really enjoyed Rila Fukushima’s Yukio. She kind of made a good sidekick in the movie and I wish she had carried over into Logan, even though it was set well into the future.
James Mangold did a fine job resurrecting this franchise. This was a good first outing for him with the character, which only helped to make his Logan pretty close to a comic book movie masterpiece.
Rating: 8.5/10
Pairs well with: all the other films starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
Film Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Also known as: Wolverine (working title)
Release Date: April 8th, 2009 (Sydney premiere)
Directed by: Gavin Hood
Written by: David Benioff, Skip Woods
Based on: Wolverine by Roy Thomas, Len Wein and John Romita Sr., X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds, Lynn Collins, Danny Huston, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Will.i.am, Kevin Durand, Daniel Henney, Patrick Stewart (cameo)
Marvel Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, 107 Minutes (Theatrical), 119 Minutes (Extended Cut)
Review:
[Wolverine reveals his adamantium claws] “Oooh, shiny! Tell me something, Jimmy. Do you even know how to kill me?” – Sabretooth, “I’m gonna cut your goddamned head off! See if that works!” – Wolverine
This was the only X-Men related film that I had never seen. When the trailers first started coming out, I was completely turned off. I figured I’d see it in the theater after it was out for awhile but then I heard what everyone else thought of it, so my fears seemed to be true. I really just never had an urge to watch this and I love several of the characters and the actors in this picture. But, I have HBO and it is streaming on their app, so I figured I’d finally bite the bullet nine years later.
Well, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be but it’s still not very good.
The main problem with the film is how boring it is. Yes, it has a lot of action but it all felt generic, derivative and most of the sequences were so nonsensical it was hard not to laugh. The whole motorcycle versus helicopter chase scene was horrendous. Don’t even get me started on the Wolverine versus Deadpool fight. Besides, I’ll get to Deadpool in a minute.
This was just a dull film. I actually fell asleep twice and had to rewind back to pick up the last spot I remembered a few times. I didn’t watch this that late either, I put it on at six o’clock in the evening and then I was up for another three hours after I finished this snoozefest.
I guess the worst part about the film is that it destroys the continuity we know. Granted, each X-Men movie after the first found a way to mess up continuity but this film really takes the friggin’ cake. So is Liev Schreiber’s Sabretooth the same guy from 2000’s X-Men? I get that Wolverine loses his memory in this film but it still doesn’t make a lick of sense. We also get Emma Frost but then later they put her in First Class and then just said, “Oh yeah, Emma from the Origins movie that has the same power as Emma Frost isn’t actually Emma Frost, she’s just Emma… Emma with the same powers.” Gambit and the Blob are also in this movie but their roles are so small that they’re sort of pointless and served no purpose, especially since they never came back.
Then you get the biggest clusterfuck of all: Deadpool. This would have made sense had they kept him as he was in the first third of the film. But then they take the “Merc with a Mouth”, sew his mouth shut, don’t give him the Deadpool costume but end up giving him like a zillion mutant powers but mostly turned him into a Chinese knockoff of Baraka from the Mortal Kombat games. I mean, this was worse for Ryan Reynolds than his terrible Green Lantern film.
This is a movie where a whole bunch of stuff happens but none of it seems that important and frankly, I can’t even remember most of it and I just watched this movie.
So what’s good about it?
Well, Jackman was solid and so was Liev Schreiber. I also liked Reynolds as Deadpool even though he very much feels like the diet version of the character. That is, until they sew his mouth shut and crap all over the character in every way imaginable.
So there’s not much else I really like but I guess it was cool seeing Dominic Monaghan in this, as well as getting a glimpse at Gambit, even if he was mostly pointless.
I’ll probably never revisit this film.
Rating: 5/10
Pairs well with: The original X-Men trilogy of films. Also, the other two Wolverine pictures.
Film Review: Fantastic Four (2005)
Release Date: June 29th, 2005 (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago)
Directed by: Tim Story
Written by: Michael France, Mark Frost
Based on: Fantastic Four by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Music by: John Ottman
Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Laurie Holden, Maria Menounos, Hugh Jackman (cameo in extended cut)
Marvel Entertainment, Constantin Film, 1492 Pictures, 20th Century Fox, 106 Minutes
Review:
“Typical of Victor Von Doom to build a 30 foot statue of himself.” – Ben Grimm
I bought this on DVD in 2005. I’m not sure why, as I was not a fan of it in the theater. And frankly, this was still in shrink wrap until I opened it recently to rewatch the film for review purposes, as I am working my way through all of the early comic book movies before the Marvel Cinematic Universe came into existence.
I think that my opinion of the film is actually worse than it was back then. Maybe my palate is more refined and I’m less likely to accept sub par comic book movies in a day and age where we sometimes get to experience great ones. When this came out, I didn’t care that most of these films sucked, I was just glad that comic book motion pictures were being made.
But man, oh man… this is one atrocious turd pie.
If the film’s poster isn’t enough to tell you that this is some sort of shit festival, then you probably deserve to be kicked in the eye by a pissed off mule. Because let’s be honest, your eyes don’t work anyway.
Let me point out the only two highlights of the film so I can get them out of the way and get back to trashing this movie with fury and gusto.
The two highlights are Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. I liked these two guys as their characters and I thought their camaraderie was perfect. But they’re also the most talented people in this film by a wide margin and I almost feel bad for them being subjected to this picture and its 2007 sequel.
Now back to the negatives!
All of the actors apart from the two I just mentioned were terrible. Jessica Alba is never really good but her line delivery in this film is probably her worst of all-time. She doesn’t feel like Sue Storm, doesn’t act like Sue Storm and frankly, just shouldn’t have been cast as Sue Storm. Her blonde hair and blue eyes just looked really bizarre and were kind of a distraction.
Ioan Gruffudd also didn’t feel like Reed Richards. He was just a total fucking dork and I get that Richards is a brainy guy but that doesn’t mean that he’s some sort of socially inept doofus. He was like a caricature from The Big Bang Theory if you were to strip away any attempts at making bad jokes.
Julian McMahon just didn’t work as Doctor Doom either. His character was just weird and he never had the presence or the weight that Doom should have. When we do finally reach the finale of the film, I like his look but by that point it’s too late and his dubbed lines, once the mask is on, just feel out of place and strange.
Fantastic Four also suffers from having a shitty script, bad direction by Tim Story and atrocious special effects.
But still, the Chiklis and Evans scenes do effectively reel me back in and keep this movie from being a total pile of shit, even though I hate the Thing’s rubber suit. In 2005, he didn’t need to look like a villain from a 1967 episode of Ultraman.
I think it is safe to assume that I will probably never watch this movie again. But I do have the tough task of having to watch its sequel once more, as I keep working through the pre-MCU comic book films for review purposes and because I like torturing myself with horrible films.
But seriously, this was like chugging diarrhea.
And because of that gross analogy (and my low rating), I do have to run this through the Cinespiria Shitometer. The results read, “Type 6 Stool: Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool.”
Rating: 4/10
Pairs well with: Its sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and the reboot, 2015’s Fantastic Four. And I can’t forget 1994’s unreleased Fantastic Four film, which can be tracked down and seen nowadays. However, all these movies are terrible.
Talking Pulp 
You must be logged in to post a comment.