Two Quick Movie Reviews

Hey, everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything up over here. As you can probably guess, the move to the new house has put a temporary slowdown on updates across the board for me. I’ve put a couple quick things up over on vgconvos, and I was able to record episode 20 of lo-fidelity with Jeff, but everything else is still settling back down into normalcy.

Making it even worse was coming down with a cold over the weekend. However, my sickness benefits you, because it gives me something to blog about. See… when I’m sick, I like to watch terrible movies. There’s nothing more comfortable to me while blowing my nose and drinking endless glasses of water than curling up on the couch with a cat and denying myself the privilege of watching something genuinely worthwhile. Yesterday, those two movies were Hancock and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

These will not be long, in-depth, helpful reviews. Remember my state of mind while watching them.

Hancock was interesting for half of its length. Once the big “plot twist” comes in (and is literally thrown through the wall of a house), it immediately becomes garbage. Similar to the most recent Hulk movie where I found Banner a more interesting character wandering around South America trying to keep himself under control (rather than Hulk-ing out and smashing things), I found Hancock a much more interesting character trying to deal with his public image and vices. The same could be said about characters like Batman, and in more recent American comic book film cash-ins, Iron Man. The faults and demons of these characters are far more interesting than the BANG ZOOM CRASH aspects. Sure, coming around the same time as Iron Man and having a superhero with a drinking problem is a little strange, but Tony wasn’t flying through the sky drunk dropping cars on buildings. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible movie, but lost its purpose and soul by going the flash route midway. As one last point, I would like to say that all children in this movie (especially the very first one you see, and the main child throughout the rest of the movie) were terrible actors beyond belief.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was almost entirely garbage, on the other hand. I wish I remembered more about the “first” (well, prior) movie, but I saw it in theaters when it came out, and I have a difficult time remembering anything about movies I’ve seen, anyway. I know comic fans had a problem with Galactus being a giant space cloud, but knowing next to nothing about the series, I found it an acceptable change (unlike “the giant squid”, where I have problems with both the original and movie-changed ending). The overall story, however, was laughable. The acting was only acceptable, with Jessica Alba being exceptionally terrible, yet again. The cheese factor goes above and beyond comical to ridiculous with scenes like the bachelor party dancing (do kids think this stuff is funny, ‘cuz I sure don’t…?). I would like to say more about the movie, but despite seeing it less than 24 hours ago, I am already forgetting nearly everything about it.

I certainly don’t regret watching either movie. They were the perfect type of ridiculous (if not “stupid”) popcorn action movies I look for when I’m sick and need to take my mind off of just how terrible I feel. What about you all? Have you seen either movie and have some thoughts you’d like to share? How about things you like to do when you’re sick?

Comments

4 responses to “Two Quick Movie Reviews”

  1. VenomSymbiote Avatar
    VenomSymbiote

    I haven’t seen Hancock, but I have seen the 2 FF movies, and I must say, I very much disagree with you, Mike since I happened to fully enjoy both of them.

    I DID however, find the bachelor scene hilarious.

  2. Tekkaman-James Avatar
    Tekkaman-James

    I agree that the plot twist in Hancock severely changed the tone of the movie, but I at least liked how it ended. It would have been better without the twist, but I still feel it was an enjoyable film nonetheless.

    The first Fantastic Four had its shortcomings, but it had quite a bit of ground to cover with the origin. Of course, this is the case with just about every comic book movie. However, I found Rise of the Silver Surfer to be very enjoyable. The main appeal of that team is their dynamic, and the movies captured that perfectly. All in all, FF:RotSS was a vast improvement on its predecessor.

    As for what I do when I’m sick, I usually break out the retro games and get all nostalgic. It’s also a good time to put a dent in whatever anime I may be bunches of episodes behind in.

  3. TriforceCaptre Avatar
    TriforceCaptre

    I havn’t seen Hancock, but I have (unfortunately) seen both FF movies. *sigh* As a fan of the “Marvel Universe” who reads a bunch of comics every week I try very hard not to be “that fan” that you see on, say, IMDB. Y’know, the kinda person who gets pissed at every single little change. In fact, I’m not that guy at all. I’m perfectly okay with some liberties being taken in movie adaptations (Spider-Man’s “organic” web shooters for example are okay with me).

    There is however, a limit to the madness.
    …Okay, I kept trying to get my thoughts down properly, but they always got all scatter brained and unorganised so I’ll just say this.
    Thing and Human Torch are portrayed decently. Sue is way over exposed. I’m assuming mostly because Alba went all Diva and wouldn’t play the part unless she had a bigger role, to wich I say, why bother with her then? Reed is a weird mix. They get it right sometimes (extremely dedicated to his work to the point that he sometimes distances himself from even his own wife) but then they do things like the bechelor party scene and muck him all up.

    Dr. Doom however is the biggest offender of all.
    Many people will tell you that Dr. Doom is the best villain in all of Marvel’s history. While I have a personal preference for Magneto, I can completely see where they’re coming from.
    He’s the arrogant, brilliant and megalomaniacal dictator of an entire (fictional) country who blames Reed for his own mistakes that cause an accident during an experiment inspired by the pursuit of freeing his mother’s soul from Hell (or the equivelent of at least)! Not to mention that he’s a master of magik and wears an armored suit with comparable abilities to Iron Man’s.

    For the movie though, we get Colossus (see X-Men) with lightning powers that he got from the same accident as the FF….*yawn*.
    Way to miss the mark there fellas 🙁 .

  4. CAEJones Avatar

    (Ah, I’m coming in late. Didn’t see a “no necro-commenting” rule anywhere. :P. And I somehow disappeared from May onward, anyway… ).

    I didn’t think of Hancock’s tone-shift-ness when I watched it, but now that you’ve mensioned it, I agree completely: the place-in-society, public-image “o.o”-ness of the first chunk is more interesting than most of the latter portion. I’ve started noticing this sort of thing in various things, be they movies or series or whathaveyou (Maybe this is a common thing and I’m just out of the loop… XD), where the story will start to reach a point where the plot has to move quickly, so the driving forces get sloppy (for instance, the finalli to Power Rangers: Dinothunder took all of the buildup that left me pleasantly surprised and s’at on it…). Eh, I liked who got in the last hit on the boss-that-shouldn’t-have-been-the-boss…?
    (And I kinda disagree on the child-actors; the writing for them seemed pretty lame to begin with, so I can’t expect anyone that wasn’t mega-talented could have done much to help…)

    Fantastic Four… Totally agreeing with Triforce Captor. Sue Storm/Reed was overly compromised, but Doom killed the whole thing. I wasn’t too bothered in the first movie (even though that’s where I should have been more bothered… it felt like it left room for fixing up the shallowness and gaps)… but “Rise of the Silver Surfer” turned him into… ur… what, exactly? I want to say Movie1 Piccolo, but that’d be a bit much on the credit-giving.
    And Space-Cloud! Galactus… I was actually hoping Galactus wouldn’t appear at all, as said character couldn’t be portrayed well in a movie whose subtitle only carries the name of his subordinent(SP?). The most shallow cartoon version of Galactus was far deeper. And my cousin’s exposure to the FF is mostly limited to the movies, so I’m sure you can imagine… ur… think “Pop Goes the Weasel~!” and “Ally to Good! Nightmare to You!” Vs. “Perhaps the boy?” and “I am a Saiya(ji)n raised on Earth… Son Goku, a Super Saiya(ji)n!”.
    … And despite all of this apparent nerd-rage, I’m not sure I even have any FF comics. XD. Not that they’d be of use to me now… -_-. (Ur, wait, no… even when I could see better I still needed them read to me. Eh, but I got Viz DBZ Volume2 out of it?).

    So I don’t have to say it later: Blah, I ramble.

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