...there is little sense of wonder or excitement in Fantastic Four. It's merely a middling contender among a surplus of superhero movies.
Supposedly, the movie's main characters are adults, but they act like children, especially the foolhardy Johnny. The characters fight and play around and fight some more among themselves, while the audience waits patiently for some sort of story line to kick in. When Victor finally turns murderous (and what would you expect him to do with a name like Von Doom?), he is never evil enough to represent a serious threat to anyone, so who cares?
Despite all the fancy special effects (and a lot of it is less than convincing, Mr. Fantastic's rubbery arms looking like something out of "Toy Story" or "The Polar Express"), there is little sense of wonder or excitement in "Fantastic Four." It's merely a middling contender among a surplus of superhero movies.
Video:
The image quality is probably pretty good, but Fox's new antipiracy policy of defacing their review copies with a "Property of 20th Century Fox" message running constantly at the bottom of the screen makes a definitive judgment rather difficult. From what I could see, the movie's 2.35:1 original aspect ratio is largely preserved in a high-bit rate, anamorphic transfer that measures about 2.13:1 across my television. The picture is a little bright and a touch glassy, but it's pretty good in most other respects. Definition and detail are sharp, colors are solid, black levels are deep, and grain is mostly absent. The only distractions I noticed were some minor moiré effects, rippling lines, that intruded on the image from time to time.
Audio:
The audio tracks are available in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, with the DD 5.1 that I listened to sounding loud and noisy almost every moment. It's not a fault of the audio, mind you, but a conscious decision by the filmmakers to fill almost every moment of audiovisual space with something garish, flashy, or blaring. There is some decent bass response, and, of course, there are the anticipated helicopter flybys, explosions, rocket blasts, and water splashes in the surrounds. The soundtrack does everything one expects it to do in a modern, comic-book, action-adventure movie.
Extras:
There is a surprising number of extras on the disc, given the reasonably high bit rate of the movie, but not so surprising is that they are all so uninteresting. First up, we have a cast commentary with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, and Ioan Gruffudd, which I listened to for a few minutes before getting tired. The keep case says that Julian McMahon is also involved, so maybe he joins the others later on and spices things up. I didn't care to find out. After that is a brief Inside Look at "X-Men 3," followed by four deleted scenes, the only thing clever being a Wolverine insert.
Next up is a nineteen-minute "Fantastic Four Video Diary," which follows the actors around on a press tour. I have no idea why anybody would be interested in this stuff, but fans probably can't get enough of it. Then there are three behind-the-scenes featurettes: "Making of Fantastic Four," five minutes of promotional material disguised as information; "Fantastic Four: Making a Scene," eight minutes describing the filming of the bridge sequence; and "Fantastic Four: Casting Session," eight minutes of talk from the filmmakers, the most enjoyable being Stan Lee, the creator of the characters.
Finally, there are a couple of music videos, "Everything Burns," performed by Ben Moody and Anastacia, and "Come On, Come In," performed by Velvet Revolver; a music soundtrack spot; a widescreen theatrical teaser and trailer for "Fantastic Four" and one for a straight-to-video animation called "Marvel Avengers." In addition, there are thirty-two scene selections; English and Spanish spoken languages; and English and Spanish subtitles.
Parting Shots:
If you can put up with its virtual lack of plot, its constant barrage of CGI special effects, and its loud blaring music, "Fantastic Four" may work for you as a middle-of-the-road comic-book adventure. It is never entirely boring, but it never attains any memorable heights, either. I suppose that makes it mediocre. Maybe they should retitle it "Mediocre Four." I dunno, but it's not quite so depressing as the theatrical version of "Daredevil" nor so spiritless as "Elektra" or "Cat Woman." It's just sort of out there hanging on by a thread, hoping to catch our attention. If the rest of the movie's characters had been as fascinating as the Ben Grimm character, it might have worked a lot better.
Not as bad as it could have been; not as good as it should have been.
Despite all the fancy special effects (and a lot of it is less than convincing, Mr. Fantastic's rubbery arms looking like something out of "Toy Story" or "The Polar Express"), there is little sense of wonder or excitement in "Fantastic Four." It's merely a middling contender among a surplus of superhero movies.
Video:
The image quality is probably pretty good, but Fox's new antipiracy policy of defacing their review copies with a "Property of 20th Century Fox" message running constantly at the bottom of the screen makes a definitive judgment rather difficult. From what I could see, the movie's 2.35:1 original aspect ratio is largely preserved in a high-bit rate, anamorphic transfer that measures about 2.13:1 across my television. The picture is a little bright and a touch glassy, but it's pretty good in most other respects. Definition and detail are sharp, colors are solid, black levels are deep, and grain is mostly absent. The only distractions I noticed were some minor moiré effects, rippling lines, that intruded on the image from time to time.
Audio:
The audio tracks are available in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, with the DD 5.1 that I listened to sounding loud and noisy almost every moment. It's not a fault of the audio, mind you, but a conscious decision by the filmmakers to fill almost every moment of audiovisual space with something garish, flashy, or blaring. There is some decent bass response, and, of course, there are the anticipated helicopter flybys, explosions, rocket blasts, and water splashes in the surrounds. The soundtrack does everything one expects it to do in a modern, comic-book, action-adventure movie.
Extras:
There is a surprising number of extras on the disc, given the reasonably high bit rate of the movie, but not so surprising is that they are all so uninteresting. First up, we have a cast commentary with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, and Ioan Gruffudd, which I listened to for a few minutes before getting tired. The keep case says that Julian McMahon is also involved, so maybe he joins the others later on and spices things up. I didn't care to find out. After that is a brief Inside Look at "X-Men 3," followed by four deleted scenes, the only thing clever being a Wolverine insert.
Next up is a nineteen-minute "Fantastic Four Video Diary," which follows the actors around on a press tour. I have no idea why anybody would be interested in this stuff, but fans probably can't get enough of it. Then there are three behind-the-scenes featurettes: "Making of Fantastic Four," five minutes of promotional material disguised as information; "Fantastic Four: Making a Scene," eight minutes describing the filming of the bridge sequence; and "Fantastic Four: Casting Session," eight minutes of talk from the filmmakers, the most enjoyable being Stan Lee, the creator of the characters.
Finally, there are a couple of music videos, "Everything Burns," performed by Ben Moody and Anastacia, and "Come On, Come In," performed by Velvet Revolver; a music soundtrack spot; a widescreen theatrical teaser and trailer for "Fantastic Four" and one for a straight-to-video animation called "Marvel Avengers." In addition, there are thirty-two scene selections; English and Spanish spoken languages; and English and Spanish subtitles.
Parting Shots:
If you can put up with its virtual lack of plot, its constant barrage of CGI special effects, and its loud blaring music, "Fantastic Four" may work for you as a middle-of-the-road comic-book adventure. It is never entirely boring, but it never attains any memorable heights, either. I suppose that makes it mediocre. Maybe they should retitle it "Mediocre Four." I dunno, but it's not quite so depressing as the theatrical version of "Daredevil" nor so spiritless as "Elektra" or "Cat Woman." It's just sort of out there hanging on by a thread, hoping to catch our attention. If the rest of the movie's characters had been as fascinating as the Ben Grimm character, it might have worked a lot better.
Not as bad as it could have been; not as good as it should have been.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]17508[/release]