Reviews

Imagine Mike Myers writing and directing a super hero movie and you get Fantastic Four. The jokes are constant in the first hour and fifteen minutes. There cannot possibly be any seriousness or drama because the movie is literally a comedy in the style of Airplane as far as joke frequency. Reed Richards and company head up into space for some sort of "cosmic genome save the world and it's great for mankind" junk that gets them into position for the cosmic storm that gives them their powers. They are in space for about five seconds (yes, almost literally) when the cosmic storm hits early. They are blasted and then are next seen back on earth in quarantine. They develop their powers soon afterwards. The Thing is trashed throughout the movie. Johnny Storm/Human Torch makes fun of him throughout but it's cute fun and they have a great little chemistry going with it. The problem is that it's constant, as is The Thing being s*****d on by a bird, breaking five or six glasses (that's not an exaggeration), etc. You see, he's a rocky guy and he'd have trouble fitting in and he'd break lots of stuff!! We get the joke right off of the bat but it continues for the entire movie so get used to it. The Thing costume is terrible as you can see the fleshy, skin like parts of the costume clearly around the neck of a guy who's supposed to be rock inside and out. The so called relationship with the blind lady that The Thing meets in a bar is about one minute in length with a wrap up at the end. Hey, that relationship could be serious so it's no go here. The only effective, moving moment is also the movie's best movie moment. The Thing's done some hero stuff on a bridge and a crowd has gathered to watch. The crowd cheers him when it's over and The Thing's wife conveniently is on the bridge and shows up in the crowd. While the crowd is cheering, she removes her wedding ring and drops it on the ground. Thus, The Thing's heart is broken while a crowd cheers him in the background. It's actually done well. There are one or two other decent movie moments and that is all. The only guy who has any life is Johnny Storm. He has way too much fun with the super hero powers and Reed Richards and Sue Storm don't have any. They hate their powers, Johnny loves his and The Thing bumbles around being made a clown of. The action is a complete ripoff, one of the biggest ripoffs in any movie I've ever seen. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen ALL of the action. The thing too is that the action was better done in the trailer then it was in this movie (for real.) The cool opera music accompanying the action in the trailer is not in the movie, plus I heard the same music in a preview before this movie so it's some kind of trailer music. For the first hour and fifteen minutes, other then the FF discovering their powers, NOTHING happens. While the FF goes about trying to make kids laugh, Victor Von Doom is S-L-O-W-L-Y changing into Doctor Doom. When he becomes Doom, he's a surprisingly good antagonist. The problem is he's in a comedy and the FF are a joke so he's in the wrong movie if he wants to make an impact. He becomes Doom completely with about ten minutes to go in the movie and there follows an incredibly short final battle which is really the only battle in the entire movie. There is some good super hero stuff here for about three minutes and it keeps this movie from getting a 1 in my rating. There is some good team stuff here from the FF, which is interesting because they have never practiced anything or trained in any capacity as a group. They just sort of show up in their cute uniforms and do stuff. They are wearing uniforms for absolutely no reason as they are not even really super heros until the final battle and are a pretty disjointed unit throughout. Only Johnny tries to make them a team and that is for popularity and marketing purposes as he loves this stuff. Reed, of course, wears his uniform indoors for most of the movie, making him look like a total chump. Jessica Alba fakes her way through it and is, of course, absolutely gorgeous. She's so pretty you don't even really care if she can act or not. You just get lost in those eyes. The script is absolutely terrible, the dialogue is empty, the performances one dimensional. Julian McMahon (if he's the next Bond, he sure looks it) is a good Doom but he's too good for this jokefest. Mike Myers would have been more fitting. The dude who plays the Torch has great potential in his role and he is good in the serious parts, all two seconds of it. The FF deserve better. To be honest, they actually deserve a MOVIE about them.

The Tim Burton Batman movies were great films (has Burton ever made a bad one?) and I really loved Batman Returns but Batman Begins is the most legitimate Batman representation to date and is the best movie of them all so far. Batman Begins is furious and full throttle but is also very respectful of the characters, something that the other movies missed pretty badly. The kicked dog of the series, Batman and Robin, in particular didn't give a darn about the characters. It was simply a Hollywood costume party. Batman Begins removes the fluff entirely, builds the Bruce Wayne character and the Batman mythology brick by brick and it is rock solid by film's end. This Batman is much more like the Burton Batman but director Nolan's Batman is also a person, the flesh and blood and mortally scarred human that fans of the character love so much. Batman is a force, unbeatable in a fight and comic book like in his justice but he's a man with thoughts and feelings too. We get that character in Batman Begins, one that's structured and deep. That development takes up the first half of the movie as Wayne studies crime and trains with Ra's Al Ghul. Ra's is not how Batman learned to fight (he wasn't even a character until over thirty years after Batman existed) so this part is a new mythology. Wayne learns the ways of a man, both physical, emotional and psychological. As a 32 year old man who is fascinated by the Batman universe, I really related and latched onto that mentally. It is truly enthralling for guys in general. Batman then becomes Batman, and that process is also created brick for brick. Christian Bale is the best Batman so far because his character is more humanized. Keaton's Batman was more of a gruff and silent mute who fights crime. This Batman feels it, thus deeply laying claim as the best Batman so far. Bale's Batman is manly, a major improvement from poor George Clooney's suicide mission in B and R. Bale is also passionate. This Batman yells, he emotes. He also kicks a lot of tail, much more like the comic Batman and something that I was very disappointed not to see in the 1989 Batman. Batman also "flies" (glides) and his hardware is updated military so it's very believable in an unbelievable sort of way. Bale is tremendous in the role. He is not the textbook image to play Bruce Wayne but he is PERFECT as the Dark Knight. To be exactly like the Batman of the comics he just needs to bulk up a few pounds and grow the beard like he had early in the movie and he's even more perfect. The transition to Batman from Bruce is also the best super hero disguise I've ever seen. I would never have said that that was Christian Bale in the Batman suit. For a guy with the same visible chin, he really does great playing "two people." The supporting characters are tremendous and make the movie seamless (I love Rutger Hauer.) Caine gives Alfred life and feeling. Morgan Freeman may be the most likable guy in film history. Cillian Murphy is a great bit of casting for the Scarecrow. He's sinister, aloof, ambivalent, and really creepy and never lets on with any feeling that would generate sympathy. He is a great screen villain. He's not given much airtime but he's terrific when he does and his fear toxins' hallucinations are brought to the screen brilliantly. You don't just see them, you feel them. Neeson is great in his role, really responding with a deeply masculine way with a really terrific edge. The dialogue is great as well although it's garbled at times. The movie also goes very, very fast. At times, I was really wishing it would slow down. On the flip side, it engages and holds onto the viewer at the same time. It never gets dull and moves FAST, much like the original Star Wars. The plot also runs together a bit (or a lot) and you get lost in the psychobabble, part of the sacrifice for a movie that is a thrill ride. I truly did not much care because I love the Batman world for it's characters and not it's schemes and this movie made me very happy in that regard. Hey, it's a fantasy, you can have "good guys" and "bad guys" (and make the bad guys real creepy.) I thought that Katie Holmes was very good as Rachel but most others don't share my opinion. What really did she do poorly? A truly great "beginning" to what is hopefully a VERY LONG and lucrative Batman progression and even better the second time.

The first twenty to thirty moments of Episode III consists of very good action yet manages to be extremely boring. I will compare Return of the Jedi with Revenge of the Sith here. In Jedi, the action scenes with Jabba are thrilling. I saw the flick when I was 10 and the moment when Luke springboards off of the platform, catches the lightsaber and goes to town was one of the coolest things I've ever seen (and still is actually.) The Star Wars music was blaring after a tedious setup and I was excited off of my you-know-what. In Revenge of the Sith, the lead up to the fight with Count Dooku, the fight itself and then the other stuff leading up the crash of the disintegrating ship should have been thrilling also but there was next to no music and it just sort of happened. When the ship landed, I just said to myself "That was really, really boring." Christopher Lee is a great resource and they should have used him more. I was pulling for Hayden Christensen but it was painfully obvious early on that he was just way too boring in his role. Playing a young Jedi with few lines and some fight scenes would have better for him but he is just NOT Darth Vader. McDiarmid steals the acting show as Palpatine but his relationship with Anakin is just not evil enough, not for lack of trying on Palpatine's part. Anakin turns to enormous evil because of his wife? She then dies and he continues on being evil? Psychologically it is just lame and does not hold water at all. Lucas contradicts his own Jedi lingo in this a few times also. Obi Wan and Yoda are almost bored after the carnage that Anakin wreaks. Shouldn't they have been sad or crying or something? In the prequel, Jedi are supposed to be unemotional servants yet they keep talking about "Searching out with their feelings?" Luke was emotional in 4, 5 and 6. Shouldn't anybody have cared in Episode III? It's probable that Christensen wasn't given much of a chance to be emotional. The only chances that he gets are toward the end and they are just not enough. Natalie Portmann is also given a tremendous challenge as she has to cry in almost every scene. She gives it a shot but it just isn't enough. The moments with Vader in the suit are nothing. VADER IS THE GUY IN THE SUIT WITH THE VOICE OF JAMES EARL JONES!!! We get that Vader, the real Vader, for about fifteen seconds. The lines that Jones does have bring back the magic so Lucas responds by giving us fifteen seconds of it. That is NOT a payoff. The special effects are great but other that McDiarmid, the actors don't pay off and the script is boring and unemotional to the point of tedium. Shouldn't somebody have cared here?