Originally posted by Nightstick
All in all it was about as good as Batman and Batman Returns or even Batman Forever. On the upside it was Better then Batman and Robin.
Sheesh..I thought I was the only one. You are absolutely right Nightstick. Begins was mediocre at best. I'd put it a notch above Batman Forever...(which IMO was a horrible movie), and a many notches below the first 2 Batmans.
Originally posted by Myth
I understand your position. What I was saying with my last post was not as much of an annoyance with the movie FF (although I did find it annoying), but it was more of an annoyance with the way some people have argued for FF. You are simply saying that you liked the light-heartedness of the movie, which is fine. I was referring to the people who will disect BB but then turn around and disregard any disection of their movie because "it wasn't suppose to be serious." Its sort of hypocritical for people to analyze BB but refuse to do the same for their own favorite of the two.
You're probabaly refering to me as one of them, and I think you're generalizing without being aware of what some of us have written earlier elsewhere and in other threads.
For instance I wrote this on another thread as a reply to another:
Originally posted by chilled monkey
SPOILERS!
Does anyone else think that it was a great idea to have a triangle between Reed, Sue and Victor? I think that's great and I take my hat off to whoever thought of it.
What I wrote:
"I agree. It worked very well.
My only gripe was towards the end where it seems the writers lost track of Doom's character. He seemed lacking in personality by the end of the film (with some poor dialogue to go with it), and the un-altered voice track when he has the mask on is flat and annoying. This causes the ending to be not as good as it could have been, but the rest of the cast stay fascinating and interesting throughout the entire movie. They helped make this film the fun movie that it turned out to be.
Other than the weakening of the Doom character by the end, this is still THE best 'popcorn movie' I've seen so far this summer."
Batman was alright but it didn't hit me the way FF did, although BB had some perfect scenes ( the beginning and the ending). I thought the middle seemed all muddied to me.
Btw, I wrote about the action scenes in BB because I wanted to make the extra effort to write about what I thought were TECHNICALLY wrong with those action scenes. I hadn't seen anyone do that so I thought I'd examine WHY those scenes didn't work.
Also, like someone said - they're just moives. Sheesh.
Or in other words:
"You're probabaly refering to me as one of them, and I think you're generalizing without being aware of what some of us have written earlier elsewhere and in other threads. "
I was generalizing as you said, I'm not saying there is NO disecting. The typical argument is as I've said and I'm not just referring to posters, but people in real life as well. I really wasn't trying to pinpoint any posters in particular, but I may have taken quotes from certain posts as examples of the only things others would say.
Btw: I thought the love-triangle in any direction had no chemistry.
Btw 2: Your last post is one of the better examples of FF fans arguing their case.
Originally posted by Myth
What gets me here is that the FF fans will tear into the BB fight scenes and then after going on and on about why they hated BB, they justify FF by saying "On the subject of The Fantastic Four. It was a lot of fun. It served its purpose as entertainment. And didn't take itself to seriously." First of all, I translate that as "It was mindless special effects and the movie makes a joke of itself."
I think some one is talking to me.🙂 Translate it how ever you want. Infact you may not be to far off. Though the truth of the matter is as mindless and special effects heavy as FF may have been I didn't leave the theatre wanting to kill the production staff.
Originally posted by Myth
BB was serious but it was more of a serious comic in the first place. FF is not as serious of a comic but the movie was constant corny jokes. It would have died if it didn't have things like "You're hot" "Thank you, so are you." The stupid jokes were the only thing that made people stay in the movie.
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Yes their are differences between the comics. Whats your point? FF managed to be the kind of movie it set out to be a, an entertaining, popcorn fest, feel good superhero movie. Was it the best of its kind? No. BB on the other hand set out to be dark, gritty, and suspenful. Instead it came out deep, dark, and meaningless. Not to mention boring and convulted. Oh and poorly shot.
Originally posted by Myth
Now on the topic of the fights, FF fans have no right to complain about BB fights. FF only had ONE fight and it sucked.
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Even if it did suck. At least you could tell what was going on.
Originally posted by Myth
And you say BB is anti-climatic? The whole city goes nuts!
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Its not just the town man. The audience is going nuts at that point in the film to. And not in the good way. Once again the end of Batman sounds cool and all. Unfurtunatly its near impossible to figure out when you are watching it. Especialy the fight between Bats and the big bad.
Originally posted by Myth
I'm sorry, its not much of an argument when your only defense for your own movie is "Its not suppose to be serious." Just for the record, FF tries on a couple occasions to be serious and fails miserably. Look at all three relationships that have no chemistry and fall flat (Alba and Doom, Alba and Mr. F, Thing and blind chick). The only character worth giving a damn about in the whole movie is The Thing. [/B]
Sure their are a couple of times FF tries to be serious, but not nearly to the same degree as BB. So when it fails its not nearly so debilitating to enjoying the movie.
Just so we are clear on this. I thought Batman Begins had the potential to be a realy good movie. Unfurtunatly the problems it did have made it hard to watch. The same can not be said for Fantastic Four. Further more I think Fantastic Four was technicaly better made. Better coreagraphy of action(what little they had), better cinamtography, better editing etc. And at least as far as I am concerned better design.
At the end of the day it boils down to the fact that I felt etertained leaving the theatre after FF and I had a head ache and an urge to inflict bodily harm leaving the theatre after BB.
Originally posted by vader519
Both movies have great cast. The problem with F4 is the director and writer. Tim Story has never directed a big time movie like F4 and he was the wrong choice.
The crowd I sat with and watched the FF movie were all spirited and delighted by the film and had a wonderful time, the film made 100 million in 9 days (and up against highly stiff competition), the cast -- according to you and also selected by the director -- was supposedly great.
And with all that, you're also trying to convince ME over MY enjoyment of the film that the director and script was the wrong choice? ❌
"Yes their are differences between the comics. Whats your point? FF managed to be the kind of movie it set out to be a, an entertaining, popcorn fest, feel good superhero movie."
My point was that Batman Begins was good because of the parts that are relevant to the comics (character development, dark/moody). Fantastic Four was only an "enjoyable popcorn flick" because of the one liners, not because of things that were translated from the comics.
"Instead it came out deep, dark, and meaningless. Not to mention boring and convulted"
Character development is meaningless? I suppose you hated Scarface as well? Was it too boring as well because it survived on the progression of the character as well. FF had NO character development, just power development. But then again it 'wasn't meant to be taken seriously' or something like that. Batman had more action than FF, so apparently it could have only been made better with stupid joke after stupid joke then, huh?
As for not being able to "tell what was going on," did you have an ADD attack or something? The camera angles jump around rather than staying in a stationary position but it isn't hard to tell what is happening.
" Its not just the town man. The audience is going nuts at that point in the film to. And not in the good way. Once again the end of Batman sounds cool and all. Unfurtunatly its near impossible to figure out when you are watching it. Especialy the fight between Bats and the big bad."
First, of all I don't know what type of crazy theater you go to but your audience went nuts? What the hell does that even mean? Were they in outrage? Because I hardly doubt that since most everybody finds the movie to be great. So from what I see in the last quote, you found it to be anti-climatic because you had a hard time seeing what was going on. Again, I had no problem figuring out what was going on, but I don't see what that has to do with being anti-climatic. It definitely felt climatic in the sense that the town was on the verge of an implosion while there is a speeding train and a fight between Bats and the main villain heading towards a gap in the rail. Thats pretty damn climatic.
"Sure their are a couple of times FF tries to be serious, but not nearly to the same degree as BB. So when it fails its not nearly so debilitating to enjoying the movie."
The problem here is that FF fails (although not trying TOO hard) while Batman may try harder, but doesn't fail. The acting is actually good in BB which makes things believable. I don't see how you could see actors such as Caine, Bale, and Freeman as failing to portray their characters in a serious mannor.
FF: "Better coreagraphy of action"
WHAT CHOREOGRAPHY!?! Flying in circles around Dr Doom? Thing breaking through a wall followed by a single punch? Thats hardly choreography.
The biggest problem I had with FF was that it had constant stupid jokes and that is the only thing that kept it alive to a public that cares about one liners more than story and character development. You take away the one-liners and nobody would have ended up liking the movie. A comic book movie should not have to thrive on something that is not what made the comics famous in the first place.
Oh come-on now, Myth. It wasn't a film with only just one-liners.
I thought they got to the essence of the FF family and their conflicts. I also enjoyed the acting and their choices for the actors. I liked Jessica Alba's Sue Storm -- she sure made me forget the comic book version.
Btw, the director himself mentions in an interview that he use to read the FF as a kid (like the directors of the X-man and Spiderman grew up reading those two comics). I also grew up reading the Kirby/Lee comics. They were my very first comic books and I am really fond of the originals.
My biggest worry of the FF movie was that the director would only zero in on the super powers and the action and not on the family essence and humor that is an overlooked interior of the FF comics. To my surprise, he made the extra effort to get right to the heart of it. Doctor Doom is where he fell short. They needed the same clever, smart, and smooth Doom at the beginning of the film to be the same Doctor Doom at the end. By the end he's lost the personality they started with at the beginning and he's not interesting at all anymore by the end of the picture.
Both the director of Batman Begins and FF focused on the human aspects of the characters and their interaction with the world around them. And to me that's what great super hero comics or movies are always about.
And this summer we were blessed two remarkable films. They were different from each other, but with both adaptions people made the extra effort to get to the heart of their characters and their origins.
And also with Sin City It's been a good year for comic book adaptions.
As I've said before: FF was fun, but lacked something. I don't think that the characters were well developed, the story was far too simple, and- as someone said earlier- the climax was too short. They fight a little bit, somehow, after a while, all figure out the same damn plan at the same time, execute it perfectly, and hardly break a sweat. Doom is not Doom. Doom would have come up with a flawless plan, executed it, then executed another plan to back up the first one. Also, the whole thing is just oo damn preditable. I found myself saying 'hm... torch should do this, Thing will probably do this, oh, don't worry, he's not dead...' and so on. And I was always right! And this really, really leads to boredome fast! BB did movie slowly, but it was building the story. BB showed exactly what it needed. It built up the excitement, causing the audience to reeeaally want to see Bat's in action. What did he learn? What can he do? How is the suit good? Anyway, it would have been stupid for it to go 'Alfred, I want to become somehting to feear... I want to become Batman!! A: Very good Master Bruce! I was just watching the shopping channel and they ad an excellent batsuit, batmobile, and gadgets! I'll order it right away! (lol)' Now, in Batman, I was rarely right in my guesses! It was great! The story was flexible, it was like a real Batman story, it was hard. And when he's all like 'I won't kill you, but I won't save you either, punk ass fool! (course, the last bit was added in by me lol)' that was straight out of the comics. It was soooo true to the name. They didn't just make a Batman movie. They made a Batman- the Legend- movie.
Oh, yea, about the fights. I am pretty sure that the Bats fights were made so... crazy... to put you into the fighter's seats. What would the tug getting beat down see? A flurry of black. I did find it annoyin, however. But I think they were waaaay better that the fight of FF. It was all ' I throw a punch, you take it, I take a punch, I fall down.' They didn't really use their powers to fight. Doom electricuted people and choked them. That's it!! The way they made him, he should have gone crazy on everyone! They don't even use their powers as they do in the books! The best fight was between members of the FF (won't say whom, of course 😉 lol powerfulone1987) And that doesn't even come close to the fight scene on the ice in BB, between Brucey and Ghul. That was sweet
i enjoyed both films. But I htink FF was more entertaining than batman. BB got a little boring at times, and took a bit of time to get going. FF had the kool special FX, which i always enjoy. ANd yeah, Jessica Alba....the most sexiest actress ever ^__^ *woot woot*.....not my initial pick for sue storm, but i enjoyed her. I think everyone fitted their roles well, especially Ben Grimm, he was good. Doom was a bit cheesey for my liking, i think they could have made him a little darker.
BB had some great scenes, and the gothic Gotham city was exactly how it should be. And i think BB had a good ending, and nice cliff hanger for the next movie. FF's cliffhanger was a bit...forced imo...but yeaah, i think i enjoyed watching FF more than BB, but BB had a stronger plot in a sense