Saturday, June 16, 2007

Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer

So after a day of reading reviews about how bad this movie was I decided it would be a great time to go out and see it. I've always found that if you lower your expectations enough, you will leave feeling entertained and satisfied from any movie. That's exactly what happened last night.

While I won't go through the whole story of the movie, it flowed well enough to be entertaining, although a few things stuck out enough to note:

- Product placement. Normally I think product placement is extremely cheesy, but I think it was amusingly done in this movie. There is a brief little Hemi praising interlude - I almost expected those two guys from the commercials to come busting in, but unfortunately the movie must not have been able to afford them.

- Random "the hero learns a lesson about being a hero" scenes. Alba's characters wants to be normal because everyone is always watching her every step. But all of a sudden, after the world has been saved (with no point in the movie showing that there actually had been a real transition in thinking) she is ok with her being a super hero. Glad to see that character growth - shame you don't actually see it (or is it? That probably would have been a pretty lame set of dialog anyway).

- Bad guy being bad just because, well, he's bad. Dr. Doom (who shows up it seems just for kicks and to get some face time with the camera) seems to be bad just for the sake of being bad. I just don't understand who is dumb enough to jeopardize the whole world and invite their own death along with the death of the entire planet just for a temporary run at some power. I still don't understand why he does what he does or what he was honestly expecting to happen if he wasn't stopped. Just another movie mystery I guess.

I must say, as a nerdy guy, Mr. Fantastic's rant that he goes on with the military leader at one point was my favorite part of the movie. I only wish that the smart guy didn't need some blast of cosmic radiation in order to achieve what he mentions.

Final Note:
As I believe with all movies, if you're interested at all or just looking for a way to kill some time, you should go see this movie. Critics these days seem to love to hate everything. I think if you want to see it, go in with the right thinking and you won't be unsatisfied. Worst case scenario, at least you get to see some cool trailers for Transformers, Live Free or Die Hard, and the Borne Ultimatum.

Enjoy!