Too much talk in this less than fantastic movie (some non specific thoughts)

Rating: 5/10 (17 July 2005)

I've seen the new Fantastic Four movie and all I can say is that there are things that are right and things that are not. It doesn't suck, but it is rather dull... at times. It could have been sooooo much better.
Its the origin plus a battle with a Victor von Doom, who goes into space with them and who may or may not have been effected by the same storm (There's a line late in the movie saying that Doom used a machine built by Reed to get his powers.) Its the story of how they deal with their powers and how Doom tries to kill them so he can begin to take over the world. Its a reasonable rewrite of the origin story with the addition of, and complete rethink of the Doom character. (I don't think Doom really works) Mostly the movie is okay, just. The film suffers the fate of most first super hero movies, its too damn talky and not enough action. In first films the plot has to go from explaining where their characters came from into an adventure, unfortunately the adventure is either given too little time by being squashed at the end, or it just gets lost. Here its a bit of both.
Actually here the plot is a re-tread of the first Spiderman film, with only one action sequence actually fitting logically into the plot, thats the bridge rescue. This is the FF in action from the comics and a nice piece of film making. (Never mind that there would be all sorts of real world problems as the result of it...or actually any of the other battles. This is the first film in a while where the destruction would most likely bring fear and lawsuits, not toy deals. New Yorkers would be suing their butts off, this is not Spidey saving a trainload of people) If you think about it its the only time in the film where the action actually makes sense. The long final battle with Doom makes almost no sense plot-wise since the twists to get there seem forced.
The action sequences are spectacular and well done. The film gets that right. The problem is that there are very few real exciting pieces. Mostly we have talk, lots of talk and that kills the film. The talk is not as awful as I thought it would be, but its still not all that great. The problem is that there is too much. In the comic you've always had a nice mix of action and talk. Here its mostly talk. Space sequence(which really isn't action as such), bridge sequence, final sequence and I think one other, not including the bits of in fighting) Its doesn't suck but its not what it should have/could have been. Yea the action is nice on the big screen but you'll not be able to zap through the dull parts. I'd wait for DVD.