8. Fantastic Four While we had great superhero films with the early Superman or Batman movies, it was Spider-Man and X-Men that showed that larger than life characters and their powers could be effectively transported from comic to screen. And while both of these films, their immediate sequels and many more comic book movies (Marvel’s Avengers franchise in particular) showed that you didn’t need to sacrifice interesting stories and great characterisation in favour of special effects, there were some superhero films that go so focused on imaging superheroes on the big screen that they forgot about the quality of the scripts (or acting), resulting in a mess of a film. Lately DC failed to make another dent in Marvel’s dominance of cinema with The Green Lantern. This film was all about the effects -though even then it looked more like a cartoon. Worse still was Fantastic Four (and its sequel). Fantastic Four failed in so many ways. The casting for one. While Chris Evans was great as the cocky Human Torch and Ben Chilkis brought a great mix of gruffness and bitterness to The Thing, Ioan Grufford was dull and lacked charisma as Mr Fantastic, while Jessica Alba was completely forgettable as the Invisible Woman. And Doctor Doom went from a titan among super villains to one of the worst villains committed to screen (despite the fact that Julian McMahon is actually quite a good actor – have you seen Nip/Tuck?) Its all let down by a lacklustre script and half-arsed direction. Where it fails even further is the dependence on special effects to sell the film. Because, quite simply, the whole film seems to consist of how many times Jonny Storm can say ‘Flame on!’, how many times Sue Storm will turn invisible (and then inevitably end up naked), how many time Reed Richards will stretch and how many times Ben Grimm will get angry. Then there’s the ‘lets mix up their powers and the lightning show that Doctor Doom puts on for his former friends. While it’s adequate, nothing blows your mind. Its not as if (as for example the Matrix sequels) that the special effects are so spectacular that you enjoy bits of the films despite the script. Read more at whatculture/film/10-messy-movies-that-spent-way-too-much-time-on-the-effects.php/3#oBqCRiKV6pW2pT2w.99
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 01:33:14 +0000