Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Fantastic Four: Awful reviews, but should I still go see it?

I opened the paper on Monday to look at the movie listing and noticed that the local rag only gave Fantastic Four 1.5 stars. This is the same paper that gave Batman Begins 3 stars, a movie that I liked a lot. So I did a little more research and went on-line to www.rottentomatoes.com to see what the average review score was like: 4.6 out of a possible 10. Definitely mediocre. If you read some of the highlighted responses, you would think the movie did even worse:


"So much...is bungled with inept storytelling and watered-down dialogue, and Story is so powerless to right the course, that Fantastic Four winds up more dopey than fun."-- Peter Canavese, GROUCHO REVIEWS

"This new adaptation is sorely lacking in nearly everything that made FF such a blast. It's poorly acted, written and directed."-- Rick Curnutte, THEFILMJOURNAL.COM (OHIO)

"An overinflated B-movie with no grace, no subtext, no wit, and featuring beefcake/cheesecake actors who look like they've been plucked from the soaps."-- David Edelstein, SLATE

Compared with the psychological probing and spiritual brooding of Batman Begins, Fantastic Four is proudly dumb, loud and inconsequential.--A.O. Scott, New York Times

As a kid, I didn't really collect FF so I'm not as emotionally attached to the film's success or failure as I would have been to Batman and Spiderman. Still, it would have been cool if FF did get better reviews. Of course, I also ignored poor reviews for The Punisher and rented it as part of our Netflix pick. Sadly, I should have heeded the advice, even if I hadn't paid full price for it. I felt like I had wasted a whole evening...

I'm leaning towards waiting for it on Netflix.

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