Slashdot Mirror
Fantastic Four Reboot Released To Tepid Reception
An anonymous reader writes: Another month, another superhero movie based on the Marvel universe. Today marked the release of Fantastic Four, an attempt to reboot a film franchise that did poorly in the theaters as recently as 2007. This isn't the same crew that's been pushing out blockbuster after blockbuster, though — it's the crew that keeps releasing mediocre X-Men flicks. From early reviews, it looks like we can expect to see another reboot in 2025. Rolling Stone calls it "the cinematic equivalent of malware," saying that even a solid cast of actors couldn't save it from failure. A.V. Club says it "struggles to fill out its relatively brief runtime," the NY Times says even its special effects aren't up to snuff. Metacritic shows rare agreement between fans (27/100) and critics (2.7/10), and it does just as poorly on Rotten Tomatoes. Even director Josh Trank seemed to have a problem with the film. Those who have seen it, what did you think?
If you don't have riveting hero(s), you darned well better have an awesome presentation.
Iron Man is kind of interesting. Batman's cool. Spiderman even, and many of the X-Men. The general public will usually risk those.
But when you start getting into "WHO?" territory, like Guardians of the Galaxy or the upcoming Deadpool, you need an incredible presentation to draw attention. GotG had that. Deadpool looks like it's going to be great. Point is, the further you stray from well-known characters into comic culture, you need a movie so cool that people who don't care about the characters will find it interesting. I still only know GotG as "Starlord, Groot, the funny raccoon, green Zoe Saldana and some red guy. But I'd pay to watch a sequel in a heartbeat.
I don't see F4 having that... zing.
"Oh no... he found the
You really need to watch the behind the scenes features for Fury Road. Sure, there was some big obvious CGI (the giant sand storm) but for about 90% of the movie, the things you expect to be CGI (the car crashes, explosions, insane stunts) are real, and the CGI is limited to fleshing out the wasteland background and erasing some safety equipment.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Um, I'm sorry but you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Mad Max: Fury Road used an incredible amount of practical FX and stunt-work, 80% was practical according to IMDB.
All the vehicles are real. All the chase sequences and crashes and explosions are real. They mostly just used CGI to dress up backgrounds, and for Theron's mechanical arm... that's about it. All the "action" is real.
We're in full agreement on Raiders of the Lost Ark though... greatest movie ever made.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
You really need to watch the behind the scenes features for Fury Road. Sure, there was some big obvious CGI (the giant sand storm) but for about 90% of the movie, the things you expect to be CGI (the car crashes, explosions, insane stunts) are real, and the CGI is limited to fleshing out the wasteland background and erasing some safety equipment.
It is a breathtaking movie precisely because it is so real. Action movie fans have been saturated with CGI for so long, we hardly know what the real thing is anymore. Most recent superhero movies have been a big yawn for me. It's all fake and the actors are not really in a scary situation. Nothing brings out good acting like actually driving at high speed through the desert with actual explosions and crashes all around you.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.