pasithea

I worked until about 11. Stacey asked me to take a break and come with her to see the Fantastic 4 movie.

So. It's considerably better than the first one (despite a distinct lack of anyone ever saying 'The Power Cosmic') And there even manages to be JUST close enough to being dots and hats that you can SEE dots and hats if you're looking for them and you can feel that someone definitely did know and love dots and hats and that is very good. The editing and pacing is also a vast improvement over the previous film and far far better than the very tedious and antagonistic middle of the recent SpiderMan movie where nothing happens but some very tedious het-drama. You know how it is. Girls are all emotional and possessive.

Of course, F4 isn't free of that. As with a number of films, it appears the evil forces of the universe are Hell-bent on preventing heterosexual weddings, even if they have to destroy the planet to do so. Along with the wedding, there's naturally the bachelor party , jealous girlfriend, and incredibly predictable 'liberated woman' moment when she suggests her party was far wilder and saunters off. I suppose this token is to make up for her again being totally whiny, selfish, and useless in the film. To the film's credit, she only turns invisible once because she turned up in a crowd of people naked. A vast improvement over the 3 or 4 times in the previous film? Of course, there's an instant replay of it on the news so the slackjaws get a second chance to gawk, but it's superficial enough that I think it only counts once.

There's also a particularly annoying bit of product placement at the climax of the movie. I won't 'spoil' it (can you spoil something that spoils the moment for you?) but you'll know it when you see it. I MIGHT have bought it if the conversation had been between Johnny and Ben but Reed got the ad-slogan and it made it fairly annoying. Albeit, still a distant second to the WalMart scene in the middle of Looney Tunes Back In Action. Honestly I fear the day anything tops that piece of whoring and childhood raping.

But all in all. The costumes are considerably better. The plot isn't surprising but is executed well. The effects are good, the sound design is good, and the editing is a Hell of a lot better, and the surfer is just alien enough to be rather sexy IMO. A decent summer popcorn flick if you can handle watching certain entities for 90 minutes without getting to hear them say, "THE POWER COSMIC".