Hollywood 101

Rating: 4/10 (13 July 2005)

From this you can perfectly observe how Hollywood works. First, we have the screen writing from Mark Frost, best known from the mystery Twin Peaks. So, we have various elements from the writers' handbook that are now familiar: References to God-like figures, a mystery (blind) character called Alicia, a fantasy character called Grimm. I guess the four characters were initially taken from the four elements. Michael France wrote GoldenEye and Hulk, which earned him a co-writer ship here. So we get the nasty boss and dictator (who turns literally into steel) and the Hulk-figure. The director Tim Story, from Taxi, comes along and adds Taxi-humor to this. Everything is mixed and we have a movie that's incoherent but slightly entertaining.
Comic books are usually one-dimensional. In order to translate this to the big screen movies have to add some dimension: X-Men added drama, Sin City used the comic book container to do film noir and this only tries to throw in fun. The science mentioned in Fantastic Four is completely ludicrous except for some basic facts, but that fits the angle.
We have Chris Evans as the new Tom Cruise, and Jessica Alba from Sin City again in a comic book adaptation.
Critics hate this because it is no cinema. They see hundreds of movies and know this does not stand out. The larger public only sees a few movies per month and is mostly entertained by this. So this makes money while getting panned.