Somebody Looks Fantaaaastic!

Jon, Jamie, Casey, and I went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Monday. Judging by their previous effort, I could have gone into the movie expecting it to fall somewhere between Fantastic Four and Daredevil in the realm of crappy comic adaptations. However, the trailers made it look much better than that and may have skewed my expectations more towards X-Men levels.

Happily, I was not disappointed. This one was far better than the first in almost every respect. Unfortunately, three of the things that sucked from the first one made their way into this one. Namely, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, and Julian McMahon. Grifod just doesn’t do a convincing Reed Richards. He tries his darndest, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t make it. Jessica Alba, though one of the holy three Jessicas, has just about zero acting ability. Naturally, she makes up for it by showing off her boobs. Being the 21^st Century Cro Magnon Man I am, I don’t mind that much. Still, she is no Susan Storm.

The biggest stinker of the bunch is without a doubt McMahon. The man has no presence. He’s about as threatening as Mort Goldman from Family Guy. How can he even hope to pull of someone of Dr. Victor Von Doom’s imposing personality? It is as if the Casting Powers That Be decided that there was no way they could impart Doom’s over-the-top megalomania in a realistic manner, so they went 180 degrees and cast a milquetoast instead. There may be some truth to that sentiment, but that is no reason not to try, dammit!

Mort Doom, pleased to meet you.

Oh gosh, I hope that didn't come off as too pushy!

That said, Dr. Doom in his armor was definitely a sight to behold. They got that part right. Too bad it didn’t happen until the end. Doug Jones as the Surfer was outstanding. Laying Laurence Fishburne’s voice over the top made the Shining One fun to watch. He did some kee-razy things with his board that made for some splendid visual effects. Chris Evans gave his encore performance of Johnny Storm the same treatment as his first. He may not be born for the role like Michael Chiklis is for The Thing, but that doesn’t hurt him any. Chiklis was great. They roughed up his rock a little bit and lengthened his brow. I can see them slowly working him into the current comic book incarnation just as Ben Grimm evolved into a rockier Thing there.

One of Jon’s complaints was Galactus. I was just relieved that they didn’t have him as a giant space fart as some of the early images indicated. What they did do was nod to the comic community in the form of a silhouette in the shape of Ol’ Purple Pants’ helmet over Saturn and then again when the Surfer met with Galactapus. I had no complaints. Considering what form Galactus has taken in the comic books from time to time, specifically in an issue of Quasar back in the day, it wasn’t far from the source.

The visuals were excellent. Even seeing the Fantasticar in action wasn’t as cheesy as it could have been. Sue’s use of powers was not only well done, but appropriate for her ability. The Thing didn’t get as much clobberin’ time as I would have liked, but what he did was good. Human Torch looked perfect, especially in the scenes with the Silver Surfer. Dr. Doom’s weird organic lightning power was present, but did nothing that he couldn’t have designed his suit to do, so I still see that as an unnecessary conceit. The Surfer’s power was fun to watch, but had an odd origin that didn’t really jive with the comics. It was used as a plot device, though, so I can’t fault them too much.

The one power I did not appreciate the use of was Reed’s stretching ability. There is just something about Ioaian Griuoffffffiuod that doesn’t sell it to me. There were a couple of good scenes with it, one of which was in London, the other when it was not Reed using it. Speaking of that scene, which you see briefly in some trailers, I loved watching Johnny do the Super Skrull thing and use all four powers at once. While it remains to be seen if the Skrulls will make an appearance in a future FF movie, who knows if the Super Skrull will as well? This is probably the closest thing we’ll get to seeing that sort of action and it was fantastic (pun intended.)

I was a bit disappointed with the blatant product placement throughout the film. Dodge was plastered all over the Fantasticar, which struck me as contrary to Reed’s earlier sentiments about corporate sponsoring. Dos Equis was not just prominently featured, it was practically shoved in my face and spilled in my lap. They would have had to give out free bottles of the stuff to make the message any clearer.

I give this movie 3 ½ out of 5 super powered astronauts on a scale that I just made up and doesn’t matter for a thing.

Heroes on a Half Shell, Indeed

Jon and I caught TMNT this week, and though I’m a week late (I apologize for nothing!) I thought I’d post my thoughts.

First off, I went into the movie with low expectations. I read the comic before ever seeing the cheesy cartoon. While the comic was intended as a satire of then-popular teenage super hero comics, it was done in a seriously adult manner. Shredder gets his in the first issue. The cartoon was somewhat of a disappointment, but still entertaining in some ways. When the first movie came out, it brought back memories of the original gritty black and white. Even Splinter had the right origin story (pet rat mutated by the ooze, not a martial arts master mutated into a rat like in the cartoon.)

I was naturally disappointed by the second and third installments of the franchise, since they just upped the cheese factor to cartoon levels. When I found out this latest installment, TMNT, was to be a sequel, I was wary. Still, the trailers showed off some beautiful animation and triggered the same old nostalgia. Armed with the knowledge that the actual movie would probably suck, Jon and I caught the matinee on Tuesday.

It did not suck. It did, in fact, rock to some degree. The animation was even better than in the trailer. There was one sequence in particular on the rooftops in the rain that blew me away. So I picked myself up off the soda-stained floor and enjoyed the rest of the movie. Some of the art style’s quirks, like April’s extreme skinniness (though she did look hot in ninja gear, rawr,) and Max Winter’s extreme chinniness (did his chin continue growing all 3000 years of his life?) were a little distracting, (much like the structure of this sentence,) none of them were deal-breakers.

The cast was filled with uninspired voice over artist defaults, like that one voice you hear in every single WB/Disney animation project, Kevin Michael Richardson. You would recognize the voice if you heard it. However, the star talents, Sarah Michelle Gellar as April, Patrick Stewart as Max Winter, Mako as Splinter, and Ziyi Zhang as karai, with a little Laurence Fishburne action in the narration, made it all better. The turtles were voiced well, I didn’t recognize any of the voices or their names, which in this case was a good thing.

The story was as good as it should have been. How good can you expect a plot involving turtles transformed into pizza-loving ninja masters to be? I got the impression that the plot was merely a backdrop to tell the story of one family’s reconciliation and another’s disintegration. Nothing too cerebral, though. It was also backdrop to some sweet ninja turtle fights. Some of the twists and turns the movie takes to get to the resolution were good as well. Others broadcast the villains intent a little too loudly, making one particular twist a little too obvious by the time it came.

I give TMNT three and a half out of four half shells in a scale that I just made up. If your thing is seeing ninja turtles kick monsters, Foot Clan, and each other’s heads in a beautifully rendered urban roofscape, then check it out. If not, then I just wasted the last few minutes of your time. BWAH HAH HAH!