Anonymous (2011)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by badblokebob

2013 #24
Roland Emmerich | 125 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | UK, USA & Germany / English | 12 / PG-13

The director of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and other films which don’t imply a specific timeframe in their title, helms a film about Shakespeare? Oh yeah, that sounds like a good idea…

And it is indeed dreadful.

In fact, it’s one of those films that’s hard to criticise because I just thought it was so consistently weak. There’s a lot of middling to couched-positive reviews of it floating about, but I practically despised it. For a start, there’s the faintly ludicrous premise that Shakespeare didn’t write the works of Shakespeare. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s been around for decades, at least, and some people do believe it… but not anyone who’s serious about Shakespeare. I think the film takes it seriously, though, and that sets me against it from the off. I know there are plenty of films that tell silly stories in a silly way, but no one’s trying to convince you Avengers Assemble or 2012 actually happened.

Then there’s the confusing storytelling, which occasionally jumps around in time; the attempts at a court intrigue storyline (because the “it’s not by Shakespeare!” thing doesn’t sustain a whole plot), the kind of thing which has been done better even in something as simplistic as The Tudors; the too-dark cinematography (with occasional eye-catching images); the attempts at spicing up a period thriller with action scenes and other histrionics, which is what you should expect from the director of all those films I listed above but quite blatantly doesn’t sit right. And it’s over two hours long too, so it keeps going… and going…

Unlike Emmerich’s other films, which are hardly the height of art but are largely entertaining on some base level, Anonymous is just bad. With a quality cast and the occasional scene-redeeming moment, it’s not an unmitigated disaster. Still, this film by any other name would smell just as shit.

(If you think that one-liner was bad, try watching the film.)

(But, seriously, don’t.)

Anonymous featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2013, which can be read in full here.

Battleship (2012)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by badblokebob

2013 #26
Peter Berg | 126 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

Battleship never sounded like a good idea. An adaptation of a board game that in no plausible way resembles real life? At least Clue was aping a board game that aped Agatha Christie mysteries, and turned it into a farce at that; and a theme park ride adaptation like Pirates of the Caribbean could take the basics of the ride (which is really just a series of piratey tableaus) and thread them into a new story. And then someone mentioned Battleship was going to involve aliens, and it really all went to hell.

Unsurprisingly, Battleship the film is nothing like the game… except for one sequence where, for reasons I can’t remember in the slightest, the crew of the titular vessel have to try to shell the aliens without the usual modern gadgety shebang, and so it’s a bit like the board game. It’s shoehorned in but it’s still one of the more memorable bits.

Around this is a bunch of absolute codswallop that I don’t care to remember. It’s something to do with an alien invasion and they do it at sea and there’s only one ship that can stop them but the only person who can command it is the young loudmouth playboy recruit who has so much potential but never fully realises it… until now! Honestly, it’s that clichéd, and it would seem unashamedly so. Everything else about the film is Transformers-at-sea — huge robots, big punch-ups, shoot-outs, explosions, all the rest.

As if aware of how awful it is, the film attempts to make it wash with something sure to appeal to the American public and be uncriticisable: “aren’t veterans great!” Battleship fetishises the American armed forces in a way rarely seen — and that’s saying something. The ground resistance is led by an Iraq vet with no legs, still in physio, hobbling up a mountain on prosthetics to realise he’s still worth something as he saves the day. America, fuck yeah! And when the main battleship is ruined, our plucky heroes have no choice but to co-opt the museum piece (literally) WWII ship; and because most of their crew is dead, the museum guides — all of them septuagenarian WWII vets — have to man their ship once again. To defeat those invading scum, just like before! AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

Ugh.

Oh, and Liam Neeson is in it. Barely. And he phones it in. And not a cool phone call like he’s famous for. All things considered, we can forgive that man some of his movie choices in the past few years, but this one must’ve been about the payday alone. Same goes for Rihanna. You’ve probably seen that article listing all her lines. As it suggests, she’s basically a glorified extra, and a poor one at that. Stick to getting your tits out in Irish fields, love.

You’ll notice I haven’t given Battleship the ignominy of a single star. Thing is, for all its awfulness, some of the action is OK, there are some (unearned) triumphant moments, and though the film’s veteran-worship is as transparent as its clear blue Hawaiian seas, it sometimes works. Kinda.

Battleship featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2013, which can be read in full here.

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Posted on June 30, 2013 by badblokebob

2013 #17
Steven Quale | 88 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA & Canada / English | 15 / R

Final Destination 5 is the latest Final Destination film. Do you really need a plot description? They all have the same story.

Here, the focus switches from the schoolkids of previous films to a workplace… staffed by people who look like they should still be in school. I don’t think that’s because I’m getting old, but probably because US productions have a habit of casting twentysomethings as highschoolers and I guess these are twentysomethings playing twentysomethings. It doesn’t really make much difference, anyway — they’re still all involved in an incident, they’re still not friendly enough to be hanging out together all the time, they still get bumped off one by one.

Oddly, this feels fresher than the dire fourth film. Not much, perhaps, but it has a few more twists on the formula. That said, it’s generally a very tired format now — the identikit plot is merely a delivery medium for more varied deaths. There are some creative ones here, for thems that likes that, but it feels horrendously shallow and exploitative. Of course, some people do like that (there wouldn’t be an “exploitation” genre otherwise), and I guess it satisfies them on some level.

In the positives column, Tony Todd is back from the first two as the enigmatic coroner. As well as no doubt pleasing the series’ fans, his appearance makes it seem like there’s been some attempt to further the franchise by re-introducing his brand of mystery. A Surprise Twist in the closing moments (about when and where the story’s events occur) seems to do similar, although on reflection it’s meaningless; a clever nod that isn’t really clever, but is neat. And perhaps means the series is finally going to rest.

In other news, this is the second one in 3D. I’d forgotten that, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly — there’s all the usual stuff-at-the-camera nonsense. It’s part of the fun of trashy horror films in 3D, so in that respect I don’t mind it. But in 2D, it is kinda distracting. I think this is a film that was made to be watched on the big screen in 3D once and then forgotten about.

Some long-running movie series manage to cement their reputation as the films stack up — look at Bond. Others don’t exactly improve, but attempt fresh offerings or develop in some way — look at Saw. And others slide further and further into mediocrity — and Final Destination is now a go-to example of that. The first two are pretty great, in their own way, but none of the others are really worth bothering with — and, as you can tell from the number, this is one of the others.

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Posted on June 7, 2013 by badblokebob

As Jason Bourne flits around London and New York making trouble for what’s left of Treadstone, a group of shady men go about safeguarding their own secretive activities. When Bourne exposes Treadstone, a series of convoluted join-the-dots links means it could bring them down too, so they set about destroying their risky initiatives, including killing a bunch of medically-enhanced operatives. What they didn’t count on was one surviving…

That basic setup covers roughly the first 30-40 minutes of The Bourne Legacy. Normally I’d hate to describe so much of a film, but it’s not my fault that co-writer, director and Bourne series veteran Tony Gilroy takes that long to get his story up and running. And it’s another 20 minutes before the real meat-and-potatoes of the tale begins.

And it feels it, too. About 52 minutes in I paused it and went to the kitchen. Not for any particular reason; I just needed a break. There, I saw a slug crawling into my dog’s water bowl, drinking the water or something, I don’t know. I’d never seen that before. I ended up watching that slug slowly edge around the bowl for 15 minutes or more rather than go back to the film. It’s that engrossing.

Gilroy has written or co-written every Bourne film to date, so you’d think he knows his way around the franchise — and he does, but perhaps too well. Each Bourne sequel has basically relied on the same formula: “the conspiracy was bigger than you thought, and now the next level up want Bourne dead”. That was fine in Supremacy — indeed, it took characters left dangling from Identity and wrapped up their roles. For my money, Ultimatum felt like it re-hashed this storyline, bringing in new characters to force a new level of backstory and hierarchy. (Clearly most viewers didn’t mind, as it’s widely regarded as the best Bourne film.)

And Legacy recycles this idea for a third time. Now, Treadstone and Blackbriar are just two of many such programmes run by the CIA and/or some shadowy higher organisation I’m not sure is real. On the bright side, they’re not after Bourne, but new escapee Aaron Cross. Not that it makes a huge amount of difference.

If such a repetitious story wasn’t bad enough, Gilroy spends a ludicrous amount of time setting it up. The beginning of Legacy overlaps with the end of Ultimatum, showing us in dully intricate detail what the numerous new CIA characters were doing during that time. And intercut with that we have our new hero wandering by himself across Alaska. For half an hour. This isn’t an art film meditation on isolation, it’s an action thriller — get a bloody move on!

What did Gilroy lose between Ultimatum and this? Well, co-creators. He co-wrote Identity and Ultimatum, and had two different directors across the first three films. Here he’s responsible for the story, co-writing (with his younger brother), and directing. He undoubtedly has some degree of talent, but maybe the other voices were essential to honing it. The other thing a fresh perspective could bring is fresh ideas. If Gilroy has rehashed the same basic plot three times now, surely they need someone with a new story to offer?

Perhaps also, after four films, he’s too close. Clearly that has advantages for remembering the intricacies of the timeline and continuity, especially with the trilogy’s increasingly complex web of conspiracies and conspirators; but maybe Gilroy has become too deeply embroiled in that. After all, he thinks it’s OK to spend the first half hour of the film connecting up the dots between the previous story and his new plot — who really wants that? That’s for geeky fans to do later.

And yet, for all that, the timeline doesn’t quite make sense. If we assume Identity is set in 2002, because that’s when it was released, then Supremacy is two years later, in 2004. Ultimatum is six weeks after that, so late 2004 or early 2005, and Legacy is immediately after that (as I said, the start overlaps). So, it’s set seven years ago? But a character finds a moderately key plot point on YouTube as if it’s the most natural thing in the world… but the very first YouTube video wasn’t uploaded until April 2005. I guess the films operate on a sliding timeline now, much like long-running superhero comics or the Bond films. That or The Bourne Identity is really a sci-fi film set in the Future Year of 2009. Considering the ‘science’ brought to bear in Legacy, perhaps that is the idea.

This is also the first Bourne film that leaves its storyline truly open. The other sequels had threads to pick up on, obviously, but if the series had stopped after either Identity or Supremacy, you’d have still had a complete tale (or Ultimatum, of course). It’s ironic, because this is also the first time I’ve been left with no desire to see a follow-up. The ending reminded me a bit of Saw IV, actually. For those who don’t know their Saw films, that takes place concurrently to Saw III, following different characters and a different storyline. At the end, the two films come together, adding a few seconds more story to what we saw at the end of IV, and ready to move on with unified purpose (well, sort of) in Saw V. Legacy feels like it concludes the same way: we’ve been introduced to new bad guys and a new hero, and the events that ended Ultimatum have been given a few seconds more development with a new twist; so now all is ready to rejoin where we left Bourne himself and continue afresh. Except Matt Damon seems to have ruled out that idea already. And, like I said, do we really want more of these characters and their increasingly ludicrous levels of conspiracy?

Legacy isn’t all bad. When it finally moves up to second gear (after a whole hour) there’s the occasional good action sequence. The requisite Bourne car chase is replaced by a bike chase, but I’d happily argue it’s at least the equal of any of the series’ other road chases — the only part of the film that can stand up to its predecessors, because the other fights and foot chases don’t have the same edge. Indeed, a rooftop/alleyway chase in Manila is just a rehash of Ultimatum’s Tangier sequence, but not as exciting. And through all that, the story remains resolutely uninvolving.

And don’t get me started on the cast. Jeremy Renner is fine as an action man but doesn’t deliver any other significant likeable qualities here (and I don’t think that’s his fault). Rachel Weisz is normally brilliant, but here is reduced to a snivelling plot piece. They’ve made her character a Clever Scientist, which is presumably supposed to make her a Strong Female Character too, but that’s not how it’s played at all. Edward Norton is wasted staring at monitors; Albert Finney is literally wasted, his one meaningful moment relegated to the Blu-ray’s deleted scenes section; Zeljko Ivanek gets a pivotal character but is underdeveloped and so his talents are wasted; and some actors from previous Bourne movies appear to be credited merely for use of their photos, until they turn up for ten-second cameos near the end that you’d rather weren’t there because it means someone is planning on a Bourne 5.

After the muted reception Legacy got on release I was expecting it to be mediocre — or perhaps, if I was lucky, underrated — but I thought it was mostly just boring, worse than I’d heard, and not even close to any of the previous Bourne films. They’re exceptional examples of the action-thriller, of course, but this isn’t even good as a routine genre entry, because it’s quite spectacularly dull. I do believe they could have continued this series without the character of Jason Bourne — there’s potential in some of the ideas here. But this version just doesn’t work, as a compelling film or worthy successor.

The Bourne Legacy is on Sky Movies Premiere at 4pm and 8pm every day for the next week.

It featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2013, which can be read in full here.

Garfield (2004)

Posted on March 11, 2013 by badblokebob

2013 #25
Pete Hewitt | 77 mins | TV | 1.85:1 | USA / English | U / PG

Bill Murray presumably needed some money, otherwise why else voice the titular food-loving sort-of-fourth-wall-breaking moggy in this juvenile adaptation of the long-running newspaper strip? Offering little in the way of laughs, the film’s main success is the cute (real) dog who co-stars as Garfield’s competriot, Odie. The real wonder is how they got him to interact with the CGI cat. Elsewhere, animals are live-action with CG mouths, giving an unsettled presentation of the film’s four-legged characters. Meanwhile, humans Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt engage in a charmless romantic subplot. Oddly, one for dog lovers (with fast-forward to hand) only.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog of reviews, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of a few films. In the future I may update with something longer, but if I don’t, at least there’s something here for posterity.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long.

The Falcon Strikes Back (1943)

Posted on February 28, 2013 by badblokebob

Directed by Edward Dmytryk (who, a couple of years later, would helm Farewell My Lovely/Murder, My Sweet, which was previously filmed as The Falcon Takes Over — connections, connections), the first film to feature solely Tom Conway as the Falcon is probably the series’ weakest effort to date.

The story trundles along for much of the film, at best a typical runaround, at worst an unengaging tale of stolen war bonds and memory loss. (I say “memory loss” — the Falcon was supposedly unconscious, meaning he didn’t have the memories in the first place to lose. But that’s beside the point.) I was getting a bit fed up with it, but the final act manages to introduce some atmosphere and incident, in the process explaining some of the earlier, apparently aimless, story choices.

With the Falcon series, the makers seem to be making a concerted effort with plots — whereas the Saint films were largely quite straightforward, often only having one possible character to reveal as the villain, the Falcon films are largely genuine whodunits. Strikes Back has a particularly knotty denouement. It doesn’t necessarily make them better — indeed, on the whole, the Saint films are more entertaining — but it gives them something.

Conway makes a solid replacement for George Sanders, because he’s effectively more of the same. Aside from an opening that implies the new New Yorker is uncomfortable with the city’s constant noise, there’s no reference to him being new in town last time round — indeed, the plot fairly hinges on the fact he previously put someone away in the area. His eye for the ladies remains the same, although Conway feels a bit slicker and less whipped. Neither carry the same charisma as Sanders’ Saint.

Jane Randolph is back as Marcia Brooks, but the women largely play a toned down part this time round, perhaps because there’s at least four of them. Goldie’s back, this time played by Cliff Edwards, who is certainly no Allen Jenkins. Whereas Jenkins made for an amiable sidekick, Edwards is actually quite irritating. (Though this is his last appearance for now, the character returns later in the series, played by Edward S. Brophy and Vince Barnett.) The policemen perform their usual shtick, which gets a little more desperate and less funny with each film. At least there’s only one round of the “because I’m the boss” gag this time. The Falcon’s ethnically-variable butler Jerry is still Asian, albeit recast with Richard Loo, and gets a more substantial supporting role, once again in one of the film’s better segments.

Strikes Back recovers towards the end for a decent final act, but it’s a relative slog to get to that point. All in, while not outright bad, I’d say it’s the least entertaining of the Falcon films thus far.

* As with the vast majority of the Falcon series, The Falcon Strikes Back hasn’t been passed by the BBFC since its original release. Nonetheless, it’s available on DVD, rated PG. ^

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (2009)

Posted on February 27, 2013 by badblokebob

aka The Other Woman

It’s funny what movies sometimes pique your interest. I saw a trailer for relationship drama Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (or, as it was retitled in America, The Other Woman) on some completely unrelated US Blu-ray earlier this year (I forget which film it was, but the only connection was the disc’s distribution company) and wondered why I’d never heard of it before — after all, it looked like a Worthy Drama, starring Oscar Winner Natalie Portman and Lisa Kudrow From Friends. Turns out it was shot in 2009 but not released until 2011, when it was slated by critics (a measly 39% on Rotten Tomatoes), flopped at the US box office (it opened at an unimaginably painful 67th place (who knew there were that many films out at once?), grossing just $25,423 total), and went straight to DVD in the UK. Ouch.

So, me being me, the double-whammy combination of “that looks like it might be quite good” and “wow, that’s meant to be terrible” put it straight at the top of my rental queue.

Emilia (Portman) is the titular Other Woman, but rather than the film telling the well-trod story of an affair, that part’s long over before the film begins — she’s living with Manhattan lawyer Jack (Scott Cohen, the magnificent Wolf in underrated miniseries The 10th Kingdom), trying to build a relationship with his son William (Charlie Tahan), who’s more attached to his mother (Kudrow). Colouring everything is the fact that, some time shortly before the film begins, Emilia and Jack had a baby who died.

As I was brought to the film by its trailer, it pays to say it’s actually very different. The advert hides the baby’s death but hints at it, as if it’s a Big Reveal they clumsily didn’t want to give away. But no, it’s brought up within the first five or so minutes and actually drives a lot of the film. The emphasised “other woman” facet is present, though in a slightly different way to normal: this is how such relationships continue as a long-term status quo, rather than the immediate impact of an affair.

Or a version of that, anyway, because the presentation is a bit melodramatic. Melodrama can be fine; good, even — but it’s a style, arguably a genre; a heightened one, and that runs counter to realism. This is a film that shoots for realism and slides into melodrama, and that’s not good. There are powerful ideas for scenes, but most are badly handled. Portman and Kudrow are quality actresses who deliver some good bits, but also some that go OTT. Especially from the latter, who’s not given enough screen time to move far beyond a caricature of the vengeful ex-wife.

The single worst bit comes 13 minutes in: an extended flashback, the film’s only one (which, structurally, makes it stick out like a sore thumb), in which we see the affair I said they were doing so well not covering. Emilia and Jack fall in love. Why? Because the plot tells them to. It’s also the nadir of another irritant, the film’s sappy plinky-plonky music.

I can imagine that flashback working within the shape of a novel, where structure works differently. Indeed, I got the impression the book is probably very novelistic; maybe a character study, even. Those are two things that don’t always transfer well to film. I don’t think it’s about Being The Other Woman, despite the US title; nor do I think it’s about Being The Stepmother; nor is it about Losing A Baby. Those things are all in there, certainly, but rather than any of them be The Story, they’re elements in the exploration of the character of Emilia. I’m not sure that works for a movie; not for this one at any rate.

Not a complete disaster, but nowhere near a success. This score is perhaps a tad harsh, but any more would’ve been generous.

* Two quick notes about the UK Blu-ray. Firstly, according to IMDb, the film ran 119 minutes at the Toronto International Film Festival, but was cut to 102 by the US release. The UK BD is the shorter cut at PAL speed. Secondly, the original aspect ratio was apparently 1.85:1, but the BD has been cropped (or widened) to 2.35:1. Not sure I’ve ever seen that before, but there you have it. ^

Rules of Engagement (2000)

Posted on January 10, 2013 by badblokebob

2012 #32
William Friedkin | 122 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | Canada, Germany, UK & USA / English | 15 / R

Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones star in this military courtroom thriller from the director of The French Connection and The Exorcist. Jackson is the commanding officer who may have done Something Wrong during a mission; Jones is the old friend he asks to defend him by finding out The Truth.

Let’s jump straight to the heart of the matter, and arguably the film’s primary flaw, with a bit of trivia from IMDb. (Should you wish to avoid spoilers, skip the quote and the first paragraph after.)

The scene of Sokal viewing and destroying the tape after he sees it proves gunfire was coming from the crowd, was imposed by test audiences according to William Friedkin. The film was supposed to leave ambiguous whether or not [Jackson] did the right thing, depicting what happened through subjective viewpoints and never revealing the objective truth of what occurred.

Which just goes to show why test audiences are a bad idea. Friedkin’s original idea would’ve made a stronger movie, and this explains some of the choices and attempts at ambiguity displayed elsewhere. I thought the flashback Jackson has played more like an imagined version than What He Really Saw, but knowing he was right (from having seen the tape) makes it seem like he’s merely remembering.

That said, most of the time it feels less like the film is aiming for ambiguity and more like it doesn’t know how to guide us well enough in what to feel. Important points aren’t appropriately established, others aren’t appropriately dealt with, and Mark Isham’s score toddles on regardless while important moments slip by, such as the declaration of the final verdict: when it’s announced, the music continues on the “tension” setting for a while before petering out. I know some people hate heavy-handed music in films, but this isn’t that, it’s just misguided.

That’s not all that’s bungled. There’s numerous instances of awkward editing by Augie Hess; a screenplay from Stephen Gaghan that clearly wants to be A Few Good Men (right down to several attempts at conjuring a “you can’t handle the truth” moment) but doesn’t exhibit Aaron Sorkin’s skill; relatedly, Guy Pearce’s prosecutor is disappointing underused (his character just needs more time, especially on his “I’ll only try with good evidence” facet); and the climactic court scenes, Friedkin and DoPs William A. Fraker and Nicola Pecorini go overboard with Dutch angles and chiaroscuro lighting.

There are good ideas in Rules of Engagement, but none of them are given enough weight. Couple that with several weak technical elements and it comes out a disappointment.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Posted on December 21, 2012 by badblokebob

Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932, but is probably best known to most thanks to the Schwarzenegger-starring 1982 film, which was successful enough to provoke a sequel in 1984. Having never read any of the stories or watched either of those films, that’s about where my knowledge of the character ends — except for this recent attempt at a remake/reboot/whatever “re”-prefixed word you want to use this week.

Here, at least, Conan starts out as a young boy in a village of warriors, who are then massacred by the villainous villain in his quest for some MacGuffin. Naturally our young hero is the only survivor and I imagine at that point he swore vengeance, so he goes off and grows up to become someone with more muscles than acting chops (played by Jason Momoa, previously seen as a non-English-speaking muscleman in Game of Thrones) and somehow or other gets on the trail of the villain.

If my poor description sounds like the film doesn’t make sense, that’s a tad unfair, because it is followable… I just didn’t really care at any point. The plot kind of pings about through some disconnected set pieces, few of them particularly inspiring with the exception of one featuring ninja-types who are formed out of sand. Whether the story is faithful to Howard or a reinvention I don’t know, but either he’s been heavily borrowed from down the years or the filmmakers ignored his work in favour of familiar bits and bobs from other sources. Visually it’s just as non-inventive, which is what you get when you hire the director of a middling Frankenstein TV movie, two horror remakes, and Pathfinder.

This new version of Conan isn’t a dreadful movie per se, it’s just sort of uninspiring. I didn’t hate it, I just don’t care to particularly remember it, and even when I do I’m not 100% sure if all the things I remember are even from this film. There’s now talk that the next attempt to use the character will be an Arnie-starring sequel to the first film, skipping both the original sequel and this version. Perhaps that’s for the best, for both the franchise’s financiers and fans.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Fantastic Four (2005)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by badblokebob

In the wake of highly successful franchise launches for X-Men and Spider-Man, the next Marvel superheroes to be afforded the big-screen treatment were the Fantastic Four, a kind of family imbued with superpowers after a space accident. “Kind of family” translated to “family movie” for Fox executives, and they produced this dross.

“Family movie” does not automatically equal bad superhero film. Indeed, The Incredibles is one of the sub-genre’s best offerings. I don’t know much about the Fantastic Four comics, but it strikes me that Pixar more successfully hit the tone and style that the makers of this film were aiming for.

The problem I felt is that this incarnation of the FF doesn’t really have a story. They kind of meander through a few things that Happen, then a villain finally emerges and they defeat him. It leaves the film bereft of narrative drive; a series of scenes strung together without a common goal. When those scenes are populated with middling acting, unengaging characters, lacklustre humour, stalled drama, and both practical and computer-generated special effects that look about twice as old as the film is, then the experience you’re left with isn’t entertaining on almost any level.

An interesting footnote about this film is the list of weird, minor regional differences, which don’t bear repeating but are at that link if you’re interested. It also received a surely-unasked-for extended cut on DVD in the US, which included completely different (longer) opening credits; both promenade & planetarium scenes from the regional variations; and mostly new character scenes, as if the film didn’t have enough of those already, or plot extensions that help make more sense of stuff that, actually, more-or-less scanned OK anyway. I can’t imagine anyone wanting an even longer version of this, but it takes all sorts, eh.

They’re re-booting Fantastic Four soon (an unusual summer-season-dodging Spring 2015 release date was recently announced) and I wish them well — the characters have run in comics for over 50 years; there must be something to them. Hopefully those in charge can learn from this film’s mistakes, and the successes of family-friendly efforts like The Incredibles, and give us something so good we can forget this ’00s incarnation ever happened.