July 8, 2005
FANTASTIC FOUR is one of the more pure artifacts of its time that we’ve encountered in this retrospective so far. While BATMAN BEGINS was pushing forward and innovating new approaches to comic book movies, this represents a studio (20th Century Fox) following, formulating and second-guessing their way into a flavorless, impact-less nothing of a super hero adaptation.
My feelings haven’t changed on this one – I thought it was laughable at the time, which I believe was the general consensus. But it was a hit, had a sequel that was a hit, presumably has people who are fond of it, though I’ve never met them. I’d say this is a better example of a “no cultural footprint” movie than AVATAR ever was. It’s about to get its second reboot and I don’t hear anyone calling for a Jessica Alba cameo (though come to think of it that would be cool). (read the rest of this shit…)
FANTASTIC 4 2: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER 1
Well ol’ Ice Cube has put out some clunkers lately, even when he teamed up with one of my favorites, Mr. John Carpenter, for GHOSTS ON MARS. When he’s not making mediocre action movies he’s trying to recapture the magic of FRIDAY, or trying to do a mediocre action movie that also recaptures the magic of FRIDAY. And even when he’s taking a break from recapturing the magic of FRIDAY, you got DJ Pooh out there trying to recapture it with movies like THREE STRIKES and THE WASH. But he recaptures even less of the magic than Ice Cube manages to recapture during his recapturing. With all the attempted recapturing going on you start to wonder whether the magic is even available to be recaptured anymore. It’s probaly busy.
