Fantastic Four
Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) is a brilliant (but bankrupt) scientist. He, along with best pal Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) go to see Reed’s old school “friend” Victor Doom (Julian McMahon) to beg for help. Reed explains to Victor that there is a solar storm heading towards Earth and that his research suggests that a storm like this started life on Earth millions of years ago
Movie:
Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) is a brilliant (but bankrupt) scientist. He, along with best pal Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) go to see Reed’s old school “friend” Victor Doom (Julian McMahon) to beg for help. Reed explains to Victor that there is a solar storm heading towards Earth and that his research suggests that a storm like this started life on Earth millions of years ago (in fact we are told the storm had the same elemental profile, although how he would know this is beyond me).
Victor agrees they can use his space station in return for an obscene percentage of the profits and a place on the trip for himself and Susan Storm (Jessica Alba) who also happens to be Reeds ex-girlfriend.
The last character we are introduced to is Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) who is Susan’s younger brother. Johnny used to be a junior pilot under Ben Grimm at NASA, but is now the pilot taking them to the space station.
After being introduced to characters, the mission gets under way. But a miscalculation in the plan see’s everyone getting exposed to the massive amounts of radiation from the storm. And so the Fantastic Four (Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch and the Thing) are born, as well as new arch villain Dr Doom.
Initially I had been told lots of bad things about the Fantastic 4 film. That it was not worth seeing. That it was a Lemon of a film, and that it was not a true depiction of the Fantastic Four characters from the comics. The last of these reasons (to me) was not very high on my reasons for not seeing the film. After all I had not read any of the comics and so I didn’t know the true story of the characters, also this was a theatrical release and so would probably upset the purists anyway. However I was still not confident when I inserted the disk. But how did it fair?
I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the film and the different “take” it had on the other superhero films I have seen such as The Hulk, Spiderman, and Batman etc. Whereas these other Superhero’s have a lot of inner turmoil it is not (with the possible exception of Ben Grimm (The Thing) brought to play in this movie. In fact they all pretty much take their new powers in their stride, and the fact that the public seem to love them, Rather than seeing them as “the bad guys”.
And whilst there are a few moments in the film that seemed “wrong” (Ben Grimm’s girlfriend leaving the house is very risqué garments, and another scene where Bens “The Thing” seemed to be in a rubber suit), these were not overbearing to the point of spoiling the movie completely. After all, my 9 year old son said the film was “much better and much funnier than the Hulk"
Picture
Presented in Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic, the picture is a joy to behold. It came across as amazingly sharp and detailed with various hues of colour being used for different scenes within the film. A couple of cases of edge enhancement cropped but, but these were minor. I felt it was definately up there in terms of best picture quality.
Sound
Audio tracks available are English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 5.1 DTS. I watched the DTS version this time and was quite impressive. It was loud. To the point where I had the turn the Db down on the sub woofer a tad. Use of rears was more pronounced in the later half of the movie.
Extras
Please note that I received only disk one of the 2 disk set and so I cannot comment on the disc 2 extras
Disc 1:
On entering the special features section you get the choice of:
Cast Commentary, which is an audio commentary from cast members Ioan Grufford, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis and Julian McMahon: I think what Is different about a commentary about a commentary from the actors rather than from the director or screenwriter etc is that you get little snippets about the movie that you would never learn if it had been given by the other people. Fairly interesting commentary, if you like watching that sort of thing.
'The Fantastic Tour':
A handheld mini tour from Jessica Alba with interviews with the rest of the cast. Lots of jerky camera action which is a tad annoying however it is a different take on most of the “making of’s” or “behind the scenes” that I’ve seen before. And whilst giving no insight into the actual technical aspects of making the film, it does give an appreciation into the promotion of a movie once it is made.
Music Videos:
'Everything Burns' music video
Anastasia and Ben Moody video from a song featured in the film
‘Come On, Come In’ music video
Velvet revolver’s video from a song featured in the film
Music soundtrack spot
A plug for the film soundtrack available as an album
Inside Look - X-Men 3': Fantastic Four and X-Men 3 producer Avi Arad walks us through X-men 3
Disc 2:
'Heroes Are Born - The Making Of Fantastic Four': a feature length "making of" covering each of the main characters and scenes
'The Baxter Building -Declassified': the film's associate producer David Groder takes us around the art deco home of the Fantastic Four team. He guides us around the set and describes the key elements, with cutaways to the movie scenes showing how they appeared on the big screen
Animatic comparison: computer animation side by side with final finished film element
Deleted scenes: Scenes that didn't make it to the final cut of the film, including one where Mr. Fantastic morphs into Wolverine as Sue Storm describes her perfect man!
'The Making of Fantastic Four': a fun and fast paced featurette introducing the franchise and characters, touching upon their powers and the special effects
'Fantastic Four -Making a Scene': a detailed guide to the creation of special effects used for a scene in the movie.
'Fantastic Four - Casting Session': a collection of audition sessions involving each of the final cast members shot during pre-production of the film
Theatrical teaser trailer
Theatrical trailer
TV spots
Disc 2 subtitles: English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Russian
Review Equipment
Harman Kardon AVR7300 Amplifier
Harman Kardon DVD 22 Multi Region DVD Player
KEF PSW2500 Sub-woofer (maple)
KEF Q4 front and surround speakers (maple)
KEF Q6 centre speaker (maple)
Phillips 30" 30PF9975 LCD TV
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