Reviews

Okay, spoilers below.

I was kind of looking forward to renting this movie because I was curious as to if it was as bad as the critics said and I kind of have a thing for blonde southern belles. Short version is this movie isn't as bad as it looks but it isn't good at all. Most offensively, it's not funny.

All the best parts are in the trailer, basically. I liked Reese Whitherspoon as the southern cop. Sofia Vergara wasn't horrendous.

The strange part I wanted to discuss, though, was the twist and I haven't heard too many people talking about this - which surprises me because it was very odd.

Okay, so you get the idea from the trailer and the first 2/3s of the movie that this is a movie where these two women are in over their heads and it's kind of a buddy cop movie where they will get to learn to like one another and learn from one another to survive. Standard fare, right? Well, there is a twist later in the movie where Sofia is revealed to be in control of what's going on. She isn't helpless at all and is actually kind of sinister. This flips the movie on it's head because up until now we only have the main villain's lackeys as the antagonists to Reese and Sofia. The main villain is only seen on TV and is never seen plotting or planning or being evil, so it's kind of like he doesn't exist. So with this twist, Sofia effectively becomes the villain. The second villain but the main villain by default.

This just felt weird. Not because it's unexpected - I like unexpected twists, but because we were expected to invest in Sofia and Reese as a team of good guys who just want to make it to Dallas. So the movie psychs you out and leaves you confused with only Reese to pull for. The buddy cop genre becomes Reese as a southern cop over her head and that's just too much to shoulder for even Reese at this point.

Speaking of confusing, there is a love interest for Reese who pops up OUT OF NOWHERE. He's a convict with an ankle bracelet and he pops up in the back of a truck they stole. What was he doing there? No clue.

I rated this movie 4 but it deserved less. It's a shame because it did have potential.

I will forgo the poor decisions of the director, writers, cast and studio which turned fans off to this movie and judge it based on the finished film alone.

GOOD

~The principles all did well with their acting. The guy who played Franklin Storm did well. Kate Mara is a very attractive young woman and tried to communicate subtle attraction to Reed and this worked, as little as it was in the movie.

~Um. The music was heartfelt and carried a tone of optimism in the first half.

~Uhhh... um... Doom was made to be an intellectual equal to Reed which is true to a comics and a great improvement over knock-off Norman Osborn Doom from the Tim Story movie.

BAD ~Well, Reed, Franklin and Doom never really sell the idea that they are world-class geniuses. None of their dialogue or mannerisms hint at a restrained genius IQ. We just are told they are geniuses and expected to believe. Sue kind of gets a pass because she says a few brainy things and types fast on a computers while reading IP addresses and binary. Good enough.

~Love triangle. No. Doom should be obsessed with only his work and ambition. I wan a Doom true to the source material for once. A Doom who would mock Reed for such a silly emotion as love. Reed should be more obsessed with his work and lost in his head solving multiple complex projects at once, to the frustration of Sue.

~Doom looked like a garbage bag hobo. ~The conflict between Reed and Ben is never really resolved in a manner which makes sense. It's brushed over in a sentence and suddenly all is forgiven.

~Ben kills people. I know they're terrorists but still.

~The one year time skip. It feels like the second act was skipped over in that one year. The first act introduces the characters, the second act sets up the problems and the third is where they overcome the problem. In this movie the second act is so short that it feels like it doesn't exist.

~The transformation scenes were pretty scary and they frightened the children watching the movie in front of and next to me.

I could write more but I have a 1,000 word limit. Pass on this.

There's a lot I can say about this movie but I am limited to 1,000 words so I will be brief. This movie isn't nearly as bad as others say. There are some enjoyable parts and good performances. Spoilers ahead.

Pros: ~Great swing sequences, fun action

~Peter's humor as Spider-Man is fun and close to the source material

~Gwen and Peter shared good chemistry together

~Chris Cooper has an intense performance as Norman Osborne and Dane DeHaan played a very sympathetic and desperate character

Cons:

~There is so much expository dialogue in this movie it's unbelievable Even the PA system in Oscorp explains everything to the employees who are experts in these things. All the characters explain everything in great detail throughout the movie...

~Jamie Foxx hams it up as a caricature of silly stereotypical nerds and growling super villains

~Product placement is so bad here that it actually rewrites history - Sony Vaios and in-plane wi-fi existed in 1994-2000? Yeah, OK.

~Spider-Man has countless volts of electricity pumped into his body, enough to kill hundreds of elephants, yet he shows almost no signs of damage

~Spider-Man entertains the idea of moving to London.... he really does...

~The executives must have wanted to end the movie on a happy ending so Peter gets over the grief of Gwen's death and becomes spider-man again. Basically when Aunt May tells him to man up, by the way. This ruins the interesting aspect of how Spider-Man copes with failure to protect the one's he loves. He responded to Ben's death with anger and vengeance but we've never seen him really overcome grief. This could have been the Empire Strikes Back of this trilogy but that's out the window now.

Have you ever stopped and wondered to yourself "Will I ever in my life see a major motion picture based on Batman where Two Face and Riddler, played by A-list movie stars, cackle and giggle and hop up and down in place like a couple of drunk frat boys?" Have you also mused "Gee, I really liked Burton's previous Batman movies but the atmosphere was too dark and emotional. Why can't we have settings with neon and bright colors all over the place?" You may also have thought "Well, I like the Batman comics and mythos but f--- that. I want a movie where all of the characters I know and love act completely different (in a worse way)!" Well then this is the movie for you! This movie is so annoying. Riddler and Two Face behave like they'd on LSD the whole time. The Dick Grayson character whines and cries the whole time. Despite the fact that the Riddler's alternate identity is world famous and it's stated that he is on magazine covers all over Gotham, nobody seems to be able to recognize the fact that he and the Riddler look identical except for a mask and pink hair - even Batman doesn't piece it together right away and he's supposed to be a genius.

I understand that the previous two movies were cheesy to an extent but this movie seems like it turned the cheesy and campy dials to the maximum setting and just went with it. I could go on, but why bother? Watch this if you want to spend a few hours more puzzled than the Riddler's victims.

It's been many years since I have seen this movie so I found myself watching it again just to see how I felt about it now that I am a little older.

The heroes seem to do things which make no sense in their reality and complete sense in the reality of the writers. If I know the writer was working for a specific effect or purpose in a scene it's like seeing the strings on a puppet - it loses you and you find yourself out of the story and thinking about the writer/story teller.

There is an incident in public which requires the team's action. A huge crowd has gathered and is blocking the team from getting there. Reed tells Sue to turn invisible, take her clothes off and get to the front of the crowd. She does so and slips in and out of invisibility unintentionally, with people watching mind you, and she is embarrassed when people in public see her in her underwear. Eventually, her powers work properly and she starts pushing her way through the crowd. When she gets to the front of the crowd the rest of the team is there.

Now think about this: how does this make any sense in their reality? The situation is the team is faced with an immovable obstacle and somehow the solution is to have Sue become invisible? Replace the crowd of people with a brick wall or a door. Does invisibility help get through? In the end she has to shove and push her way through so why did she need to strip naked and turn invisible? Of course, it was because Sue is played by Jessica Alba and the writers wanted a scene where their sexy lead female actress titillates the male demographic and provides a humorous scene at the same time. I knew it and I am willing to bet many others knew it instantly, too. The motivations of the writers was so transparent (no pun intended) that it took me out of the movie and I sighed in embarrassment, just like Sue.

Most of the actors were terrible in their roles. Particularly bad were Jessica Alba and the guy who plays Dr. Doom (I don't care enough about him to look up his name). Jessica Alba is beautiful and talented at modeling but she's not believable as a genius scientist. She was put there to appeal to teenage boys. What will Hollywood do next? Cast John Cusack as Richard Nixon? hahahaha-- oh....

I will say Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans played their roles very well and were the only real likable characters to be seen here. There was some bad dialogue but that's more the writers' fault than theirs.

Filling out the cast are some very cheesy actors in supporting cookie-cutter roles like the evil corporate board members. Or the cops and rabid fans who love the Fantastic Four immediately and give them the reception not seen since the parade given to Buzz and Neil Armstrong after returning from the moon landing.

Nothing really happened besides the team getting their powers and arguing. They spend the whole movie bickering and only really work as a team once and even then it's kind of small potatoes.

Jessica Alba strips naked again. That makes it twice in this movie.

There is inconsistent logic all over. When the team is seen in public for the first time they are instantly popular - like Beatles popular and they hadn't done anything huge like save the world. Yet when Doom's transformation is evaluated by a medical doctor, the doctor insists on contacting the CDC to make sure his powers aren't contagious or deadly. Where was this concern upon the public seeing a giant rock man, a man who can ignite himself, a woman who can turn invisible or a stretchy dude? Aren't these just as potentially infectious? Why didn't any other person in the entire world show any concern about people with the powers of gods walking among them and why didn't the U.S. government immediately start asking the same kinds of questions the medical doctor asked?

Oh, Jessica Alba naked again and uses her invisibility to hide in another comical scene. Three times...

Hey, this movie is making me hungry. I feel like eating. Maybe I will have a Whopper from Burger King, or Lunchables washed down with some Dos Equis and Pepsi and play the Fantastic Four movie game on an Xbox I bought from Wal Mart.

Oh, back to the movie. I find it hard to believe these people are friends, let alone the first family of heroes. Despite decades of friendship and teamwork, the two best friends in the movie are put at odds faster than rival moms at a Black Friday Forever 21 sale.

Doom was changed from a villain with a complex moral code to a one dimensional unethical corporate CEO of a company which sells... something? He gets muscled out of his company despite the fact that the FF is insanely popular for some reason. The popularity of the team SHOULD translate to new investors on that alone... but that is never considered by the writers who want motivation for Doom to hate Reed.

We don't need another corporate CEO driven mad by his new powers and on the hunt for revenge. We already had that with Norman Osborn in Spider-Man and again in Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (replace CEO with scientist).

I'd watch through the end credits to see if there is a fourth scene of Sue accidentally being naked but I'm losing interest fast.

I disliked this movie. I can in no way imagine ever wanting to watch this movie again. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great, either. Instead, I found it to be predictable, disengenuine, and (most offensively) unfunny.

I am not sure whether or not this movie was meant to be a comedy or drama, but it had way more drama than comedy. All of it, I was able to predict beforehand.

This movie seemed to end about four times but it kept going. The movie lasted much longer than it should have. By the time we got to the end of the movie I didn't care anymore.

The lead actor strongly resembled Fred Savage, though I can't hold that against him. He seemed to always be mugging to the camera and it really came off as annoying. Elisha Cuthbert was good, however, but that wasn't enough to salvage this.

Again, the movie wasn't bad. It just wasn't good. There is nothing remarkable about this movie that would make it stand out among it's peers. It's not a great drama, it's story isn't anything special, it's not funny. It's just bland.

It does not follow. That's the best way to describe this movie to anyone. I've watched it several times now; I admit, the movie is so strange that even though you know it is bad you have to go back and watch it again just because you can't believe what you just watched. That's saying something for me, a person who can only watch a movie once before needing a few months to pass before wanting to watch again.

What I find so intriguing in this movie is how badly the character of Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) interacts with people, and how, amazingly, they accept her. Not just accept her, they all love her. Nomi, a woman who reacts with violent hostility to simple questions or requests, displaying herself to be a complete sociopath. Yet, strangely, every person she snaps on sees her as something endearing or wonderful for some inexplicable reason. I just don't get it.

In the beginning of the movie Nomi loses it on a total stranger, attacking the woman's car before being stopped and then vomiting for some unknown reason. The woman's response? Take her to dinner, but not before nearly kissing her in the most misplaced and misguided lesbian reaction. I would have called the cops. What next? I'll tell you. Nomi snaps again when asked a simple, harmless question by throwing the food the woman was treating her to and shouting. The woman's response? She asks Nomi to move in with her. What the hell?! Throughout the movie Nomi comes off as totally unlikable to the point that I found myself rooting against her, which is ironic seeing as how she is the protagonist of the film. To be fair, Nomi comes in a few flavors. I want to say she is bi-polar but that would leave out her middle ground: the smarmy bitch flavor. I hate to use that word but it's the only way to justly describe her. You'll see. This is flavor is most often displayed when during any of her many disrespectful interactions with her employers and superiors. The cringe-worthy "I was having my period" excuse to her boss and her taunting of Cristal Conners (Gina Gershon) later in the film.

She seems to follow some set of ill-defined and unbalanced set of morals that make no sense to anyone but her. Nomi all but whores herself out for success but draws a line at icing her nipples for some reason. Then throwing the ice at the casting director and exploding on him. Wow. Then she gets the job.

With respect to Elizabeth Berkley, I don't know why so many people in this film saw her as this amazing beauty with so much talent. She is attractive, yes, but by no means the most attractive woman in the cast (even if you exclude Gina Gershon, who was gorgeous). Which leads up to an incredible, vomit-enducing scene between Nomi and Cristal about how great Nomi's breasts are. They're nothing special, in my opinion. The dialogue here.... Honestly, I can't do it justice. Nobody talks like people talk in this movie. Nobody. "I want to see your ass," "What do you think of your breasts?,""I'm on my period. Check." This movie managed to make nude women, even those as beautiful and talented as Gina Gershon, unsexy. The dance numbers failed to entice any kind of sexual desire from me. How untalented must a filmmaker be to make a nude woman unsexy? Goddess would close in a week in real life.

That just scratches the surface. There's so much about this movie that is just awful and makes little sense that I have no idea where to begin. When I have more time I hope to watch this movie and ammend my comment as I go.

As awful as it is, it has more rewatchability than most movies I have ever seen. It's not because this movie is sexy, as the creators hoped, but because it is a moving demonstration of absurdity and a world that could only exist in the mind of people with no scope of social and sexual reality. It is funny, I admit, but still awful.

Months ahead of this film's release I heard a lot of negative information about it's production. I was told it was being butchered due to being rushed through production to beat Superman Returns and probably smite Brian Singer as well. Being the X-Men fan that I have been since I was a child, I decided to let these warnings fly by with no notice. Let me tell you; they were right. This film is an insult to fans of the comic, cartoons and even of the other films.

(spoilers within) The character development is so poor here. I've heard defenses that you don't need development in a closing movie but that's BS in my opinion. There needs to be something learned in every film for established characters. Some struggle, some goal accomplished. This kind of thing doesn't happen here, really. At least not for the positive. Wolverine, Storm and Magneto seemed to regress as characters since X2. Logan ends X2 telling Scott that Jean chose said she returned Scott's love the whole time. In this film we're treated to Logan seemingly not caring that Scott is missing and possibly dead, instead he dry humps his wife first chance he gets. (At the same time ignoring Xavier's warnings) Storm went from being a timid mouse in X1 and 2 to a loudmouth in this film. Here's what we lost because of Halle Berry's demands for more pay and higher screen time in this film: 15-20 minutes of the movie that could have been used to develop a new characters, and a loss of maybe 10million from the budget. Here's what we gained: compromised story lines that contradict past films. I'm supposed to believe that Xavier chooses Storm as his heir to the school over Scott? His first student and field leader of the team? All because Scott was depressed and having mental attacks from Jean? Which leads me to my next point.

Xavier knew Scott was having mental attacks from Jean according to Zack Penn, the writer. This being the case, why was Xavier shocked when he discovered she was alive? Why was he portrayed as scheming and a bit reckless in this film when in others he was a kind hearted gentleman? To give Wolverine someone to yell at, that's why.

Wolverine above all others in this film. Once again, only Wolverine can save the day. We don't need 3 of the 4 ninja turtles. As long as we have Leonardo we can't lose! This movie was all regression from what we had in X2. We're introduced to characters that we don't learn anything about. Actually, to say they're introduced is misleading. The character will do their bit and move on with no mention of their names or motives for actions. We're given characters who we know and love from old films and comics and have them unjustly done away with (Psylocke, Cyclops, Mystique). In fact, this film regressed from the advertisements of it. At least in those Angel suited up and fought alongside the team.

I strongly recommend any fans of the X-Men comics stay away from this, as it will make you weep for what could have been. If you know nothing about X-Men I guess it's okay. However, it will still insult your intelligence to an insane degree. You'll see what I mean.