Fantastic Failure

About a month ago, I was debating on putting this site on Hiatus, I had hit an all time low in funds, and just couldn't see any movie whatsoever. There was also that little conflict I had with myself about the "Being too generouse" with movie reviews. Yeah well, I then fell into some personal problem and the site just became less and less important. But no more... Hell or high Heaven, there will be an update every Thursday.

Now what I could do today, is give a review to War of the Worlds, not gonna do it. Go see it, it's pretty good. I could also tell you about why you should NOT see Herbie: Fully Loaded, but I would hope that the reasons would be obviouse, so thats a no go either. What I am gonna talk about today is something opening tommorow. Fantastic Four.

A year or two ago, when I first heard of prodiction of Fantastic Four movie, I was a giddy little school boy. I was happy, as it is one of the greatest comics out there, and the posabilities were just endless. Now I stare upon it as a foul and dirty accident left on the rug by a dog.

Lets go with this. Now I understand that in every comic book adaptation, things change to better help the material make the transfer to the silver screen. Spiderman lost his web shooters, the Absorbing Man was Hulks father, Elektra was a smarmy rich daughter. Trust me I understand this, I defend most of this. But the changes made to Fantastic Four is just too much.

It all pretty much revolves around Doom. One of the major.... No, THE majot villian of the entire Fantastic Four series. We first see him as the iron fisted ruler of some eastern Europ country, apparently horrifically scarred by an accident in college, an accident cause by Dr. Reed Richard... Our very own, Mr. Fantastic. Doom swears a vendetta against Reed, for he truley believes that Richard is the reason behind his horrific scars. And thats where his trademark comes. He covers his hidious face, with a mask of metal.
Doom never had any powers. What he had was a genius mind, masterful tactition abilities, and enough monies and subordinates to throw at anything. He created death rays, weapons, ships, robots. He whipped up masterful plans that punished the Fantastic four. If he could help it, he would never throw a punch.

But all that changes. No longer is Doom a dctator, he's some big business owner, who supplies the funds to Richards space project, and for whatever reason, tags along. No longer is he scarred, no longer is he powerless. He can now hurl bolts of lightning around. And wears the mask because it looks cool apparently. No mention of scarring whatsoever.
No more minions or machines, now he's just a powerhouse that for some reason, takes four people to take down. It destroys the very staple that was Fantastic four. And then? A love triangle. Sue Strorm, ex-girlfriend to Richard, either used to Date Doom, or was dating him during the accident. Wow, what drama, what a twist, what craptastic writting. So now that akward storyline is set in place, leads to many many bad lines between Sue and Doom, which are not needed.

Jonny, oh Jonny. The Human Tourch was always the wild one, funny one, always the one spitting out random catch phrases. But the guy just comes off as an annoying dick in any form of prievew I see. A distraction from the main plot as he tries to be cool, funny, and likable at the same time. He will be playing the heart of the conflict within the team, Richard desperatly wants to keep the accident and their powers a secret, Jonny wants to be fame and fortune, thats pretty much it. Both Richard and Jonny come to a middle point, where Richard realizes the need for their powers, and Jonny realizes that he must use his powers for good, instead of fame. See there? I haven't even seen the movie and I already explained n hour and a half worth of plot.

Ben, The Thing. Well, from what I can tell, besides the horrible way they give his "Clobberin' Time" line, is done well enough. I assume it's because The Thing is such a basic character, he can't help but be done right. He's a huge green rocked monster, children fear him, he doesn't like that. Remorse and depression comes, but he still realizes he's gotta kick ass.

Just don't bother with it. The acting looks horrible, the plot laughable, and it will piss off each and every Comic book fan there is. Wait for it to come on TV.

If I am motivated too, I will see it and give a proper review tommorow, I can't make promises.

Have Towel, Will Travel.

Okay so here's the deal. The single reason that I have not posted in a long time, is because I've been giving the impression of being too generous, all the movies I have so far reviewed, have gotten a very generously good review. I seem biased, so I held off until I saw a movie I deemed bad enough to warn people about. But as my dollar has been short, I really wasn't inclined to throw money at something I wasn't gonna enjoy, and all the bad movies I've seen on TV were either shut off, or too old to even bother. But the good news is, is that I have been transferred to a better store, and the money flow has become much better, that and I plan to shoot for a Thursday update regardless of whether I've seen a movie or not. This will be spent to just generally discuss the goings on of Hollywood and the Movie Industry in general.

Now, I do have a review, and to be damned with bad movies, I'm not gonna let that hold me back when there are so many movies that have potential, finally coming out. I have already missed my chance to review Constantine and Sin City because I wanted to put a bad movie first. This day, I will review




The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, now the Box Office numbers have yet to be released for today, so I have not yet gotten them to put here, but when I do get them I will post them.
*Edit: Numbers are in. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy made on opening night $8,100,000, totally destroying XXX2 by nearly double, and went on to make $21,707,000 to date for their opening weekend. Not too shabby.

The Guide is getting some pretty strong recognition as a good movie, but of course, there are the Book Fans that have instantly labeled it as a "Oh No." I've read the book more times than I can count, and love it entirely, but I am someone who understands that the adaptation from book to movie is shaky and there has to be differences. Its two forms of media. But I have this warning to anyone who walks in expecting an exact adaptation.... IT IS DIFFERENT. Way different, this is only as to put enough into it to make a movie, and smooth out the plot that stretches five books, into a nice two hour movie. The problem with the book is that it's short enough to fill about an hour, and ends on one major cliffhanger. Please don't expect to see the exact book on the screen. If you wanna see that, there's a very nice Mini-Series on DVD right now that does it well.

Moving on, the changes are far from bad. This movie was in production for a long while (more so preproduction for a while) and Douglas Adams himself wrote the screenplay before he passed away, these are all his ideas, and stay true to the Brit humor that all his fans love.

The movie starts on a Thursday, the worst Thursday ever in fact, in a small town in England, where we find Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) an average man who is about to go on a very unaverage adventure. See Arthur happened to be friends with Ford Prefect (Mos Def) who is not an Earthling, but an alien man from a planet somewhere in the proximity of Betelgeuse. Arthur once saved Ford's life, so Ford repays the favor. The Earth is promptly destroyed. We follow Arthur and Ford, as well as Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and Marvin the Paranoid Robot (Warwick Davis, Voiced by: Alan Rickman) as they travel the Galaxy in the stolen ship; The Heart of Gold.

As said before, the movie deviates from the book plot to fill in a gap, but otherwise stays amazingly true to the books with many exact quotes. The new material and the old flow seamlessly, giving the movie a feel of consistency throughout. The humor stays true to its British origins, giving quite a few Brit references, such one being "Leave this to me. I'm British, I know how to queue."
One of the greatest moves was of course Marvin, the Paranoid Robot. There is no man alive who could voice him better than Alan Rickman; his drulling English accent is pretty much to a T what I had when reading the books so long ago. His lines, straight out of the books and new to the screen, got some of the best responses. His stubby body and large head was what Douglas was quoted as saying he really wanted Marvin to look like, rather than the way he appeared in the Miniseries.

Overall the movie did really well in keeping Adam's legacy alive, and I would have to say, the only real problem I had was they never explained WHY the towel was important ;) But all the book readers should know that in advanced. I also notices, that alot of the movie seemed to have made the cut, as we see certain things in the Trailers, that don't appear in the movie. But that only makes good for DVD extras, and Director's Cuts.

8 out of 10 Go watch it, right now.

Expect a new post on Thursday, right now this sass frood needs to get some sleep.

Constant Watchings.

Again, I apologize in the latency of updates. I was going to write my expectations of Elektra, but on the opening night, I heard so many "It Sucks" my heart fluttered and the inspiration died. I am also having a lot of trouble writing up my next two reviews, as they are very similar for one reason. I haven't decided to separate them in two posts, or make a double review... But they are coming, and one of the movies actually just came out!

But on to other news, and the real reason of this post. This has brought a rather BIG smile to my face, as it is one of my favorite Graphic Novels. I've also heard very good things about David Hayter, the writer, and how he has made the Screenplay as close to the Novel as humanly posable. This is an odd thing though, ad it was just the other day that me and my friend were discussing Constantine, and I mentioned that The Watchmen would be an awesome to film movie.

Constantine, coming a week this Friday. I have never read the Graphic Novel, though I heard VERY good things about it. This fact of course, may make my opinion of the movie slightly skewed from someone who has read it. But I really don't think that's the point of Comic/Book movies. I believe that, more so than to enthrall old fans with characters they know on the silver screen, the movies are made to draw in a new fanbase. How many people have read The Lord of the Ring since the movies. Before then I could honestly say I never saw the book on the shelf of my book store, but now, there are two racks reserved for the different styles of the book, and any other Tolkien story the stores can get a hold of.

But the book aside. I am actually looking forward to this. As I know of, this is really the first Graphic Novel to jump the big screen since the Comic Book Movie fad boomed in with X-Men. And Keanu Reeves defiantly looks like a good pick for this role, with his Action/Sci-fi background of the Matrix, he is no stranger to the philosophy of Religion, and the kick ass style of a warrior. This is a man who went from being a brainless Cali-Surfer in a time traveling Phone Booth, to being the savior of humanity in a world of virtual reality. The man defiantly has some skill.

So, High expectations for Constantine, ecstatic for more Watchmen info, and two new reviews coming soon.


IN OTHER NEWS!!! This is not a joke, Nick, again a bit behind in the ways of the world, have taken in the "Classics to DVD" trend, and is starting it's Rewind Collection with Clarissa Explains it All. I suggest anyone who wants to see the GOOD nick shows again buy this, so that they won't decide against releasing

Butterfly Nets

Sorry for the whole not posting again thing, lately I haven't seen any movies on TV that have inspired a review from me... And my theater budget is little to none, so no new movies there either. But I have just watched a movie that has struck me in the brain, and the brain has a large part to do with this particular movie...




THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT


The Butterfly Effect. This movie was another that was rather harshly town by the critics, but still managed to pull in $57,650,876 total in the box offices, and stayed in the top ten for five straight weeks. Not too shabby if you think about it.

Now, you must realize that this is not a movie for the light hearted, this thing is dark, and for what seems to be for no reason than being dark. We have everything from Pedophilia, to Doggy cooking. If you could sum this movie up in one phrase, I would have to say it is a psychological Moshpit.

The movie is about Evan Treborn(Ashton Kutcher), who as a child had several blackouts during traumatic times of his life. Through a psychologists suggestion, Even has been keeping journals since he was seven to help with memory. Through reading these journals he learns he can go back, and actually change the events that happened during the blackouts... But when his change turns for the worst, Even is thrown in a never ending spiral downwards as he attempts to fix his mistakes, and only succeeds in making things ten times worse with every change...

This movie does great with what it aims at, psychological ware, and shock value. In every change we are subjected to another characters pain at the fault of Evan, every change we see something so outstanding, it makes us breath heavy as he changes again, and makes it so it never happened. This movie tugs at your heart, and your mind as it has no regard for the main character's well being as, they'll be changed in the next switch, so we see everything from murders, and prostitution, all the way up to psychosis and missing limbs. And every change seems to make it worse, as the strain on Evan's brain increases as more memories try to fill his brain.

This movie raises a lot of very interesting questions about the chain of events our actions create, and just how much our small off handed responses may effect another's life drastically, The Butterfly Effect and Chaos Theory in it's essence.

The movie falters slightly though, as it has some minor plot holes including the switches, one including the fact that he has someone else's memories flash by, for no reason better then the lack of narration to show it... The plot is also a little troubling to follow, if you're not ready to be deeply involved in the movie straight through...

So if you're looking for a movie where a guy magically gets the power to change the past, and continues to change it cause he just "can't get it right dang nabbit!" Then step away, if you're looking for a movie that treats you like an adult as we look into a world of sadistic minds and mental illness, then saddle up, this one's for you!

9 out of 10, if you're into the mental stuff, pick this up... I also suggest the Directors Cut, unfortunately I haven't seen it, but I heard it was much better then the Theatrical release...



For the future. I plan on somehow getting the cash to see White Noise, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Elektra. Speaking of Elektra, expect a small paragraph coming soon of my expectations/hopes. I liked Dare Devil (Though I can admit that was a rather big flop) and I hope this one can impress...