Fantastic? Sure..

Got to see Fantastic 4 today, which is the premiere, by the way. For some reason, we appeared at Mid Valley to find many available tickets for this movie, even on the premiere. Weird, isn't it. Anyway, I have watched the entire film in its full audio and visual quality in a cinema without distraction; on the afternoon of the first day of screening with college buddies, right after the final paper of exams. It was the perfect environment to catch a movie for the adolescent such as myself; and I am ready to pass judgement. The verdict: do NOT watch this movie.

It was pretty much as bad as I pictured it, seeing how they project the look and the feel of the movie. As I write this, I try not to include any spoilers. But now that I think about it, there is nothing to spoil. The plot was shallow, the conflict was not compelling enough, and the climax did not work. Plus, it ended much sooner than I thought it would. The visuals are good, though.

The very weakness of the whole production is that it is based on an old comic book. It is hence very difficult to create a good plot and storyline out of it. The whole point is just four people with superpowers kicking bad guy ass. I could tell that they did try their best to make a good story and all, but it just did not work. That is why Spiderman 1 & 2 are excellent movies. I also blame the comic book for its corniness, especially the part where they received their powers. Listening to The Thing talk makes me feel like I'm watching a cartoon. Luckily they stayed away from using cheese-flavoured lines like "It is I, Mr. Fantastic, here to save the day!" or "A-ha! We meet again, Doctor Doom."

If you still want to watch it, go ahead. But do it as a social outing. For me, it is one of those movies that I would download from BitTorrent and watch it in my room. Oh, and please buy some popcorn to keep yourself entertained.
Another piece of Justin Wong's mind at 7/14/2005 10:14:00 PM