Four for fightin'

Just back from watching Fantastic Four. So, now to review it without featuring the word fantastic.... could be tricky, one way or the other.

Bad points: There's some clunky dialog. There's also about half an hour of plot missing. I mean, they get all the character origin stuff in, but there's no bad guy. Well, there is, but he doesn't do anything bad. Sure, he kills a couple of people, but a) no-one knows about them, and b) they deserved it, by virtue of being assholes or having terminal stupidity. The Green Goblin threatened to kill hundreds of people, attacked the military, and dropped MJ off a bridge. All Doom does is go after the heroes.... and yet the civilians and the cops somehow know he's a bad guy? Meh.

Good points: Uh, well, the film is actually pretty ace :) Despite what I just said, it's fun and exciting, and pretty damn funny. There's the four heroes: Jessica Alba is hot... not really anything else to say about her. Mackie is excellent, obviously, and get's a couple of good lines. But really, this film is the Fantastic One - Johnny Storm, AKA The Human Torch. He gets almost all the good lines. Actually scratch that. What I meant to say was that every single line that comes out from his mouth is frikin' awesome. The actor (no idea who he is, but hey) nails it - the cocky, arrogant enthusiasm I know that I would sure as hell feel if I found out I could fly and be on fire at the same time.
Oh, and Reed Richards... well, he's the straight guy, boy scout, kind of a smart, less useful Superman. And as we all know, Superman is a dick.
Overall, it's not as good as the X-Men or Spider-man films, but is better than Daredevil or Hulk. Okay, that's not saying much. I think I enjoyed it more than Batman Begins; BB went for the dark side, but wasn't quite dark enough. Also, in the Year One comic, Gordon is a complete bad-ass, which he wasn't in the film, so yeah, Fantastic Four is better than Batman Begins. And I haven't seen Electra, so I can't comment on it. Though I'd put it ahead of Daredevil, simply because Jennifer Garner is gonna be on screen 90% of the time.

Go see it!

N.B. Did Stan Lee have a cameo in Spider-man?