Walt Before Mickey Review

October 14, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So today was looking at my local theater line-up and I notice a film called Walt Before Mickey. What is this? How as a Disney aficionado have I never heard of this film about the big man himself, Walt Disney? I had a little bit of time tonight so I figured I’d go check it out. I mean my blog has Disney in the name so I think I’m obligated to do so.

Well, my friends there is a reason I hadn’t heard of Walt Before Mickey. I can confidently say the only encouragement I can give you to see this film is if you like inadvertently funny ‘so bad it’s good’ type of entertainment. That’s right, Walt Before Mickey, had me in stitches but not in the way they intended it too.

It’s really bad.

That’s not to say they don’t try to make a good movie but the script is so bad there were times I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

As the title suggests, Walt Before Mickey is about the mostly business life of Walt Disney before he created Mickey Mouse. It begins with some of Walt’s early life drawing horses for his neighbor. We will occasionally flashback to these scenes and in one scene it seems like Walt is terrified of his father and in another he loves and adores him. While that may be partly true it feels inconsistent and random here. Most of the time he is giving out great wisdom but then out of nowhere he will be harsh and cruel.

Eventually we get up to him as a young adult played by Thomas Ian Nicholas . After working for a local advertising agency Disney meets Ub Iwerks played by director Armando Gutierrez. We also meet Rudy Ising (David Henrie) who evidently answered an ad for a Cartoonist but has never heard of animation before and has to be shown a flipbook…

A lot of this is true as far as names and faces but it is handled with such dew filled sepia lighting its tough to take seriously. It feels like a movie we’d see in Sunday School class not a feature film.

And then the script just piles it on. Like we get lines such as

“This story is drawn in my own blood!”

“You will never be a failure Walt! You have too much goodness inside of you”

“I wished upon a star and look what it gave me!”

If you aren’t laughing at those lines than you have a higher tolerance for cheese than I do.

One of the most insane scenes I wish I had a picture of is Walt after Laugh-o-grams is closed down he becomes friendly with a a mouse that he starts to carry in his shirt pocket. He even dives in the dumpster to get food for the mouse and when it scurries away he goes into full-on meltdown mode. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This isn’t just a subtle hint at a friendship with a mice. This is whole on Cinderella talking too and interacting with him in multiple scenes. It makes you wonder why it took him so long to come up with Mickey!

The acting isn’t that bad. Even Jon Heder from my favorite Napoleon Dynamite, is fine. It also looks nice as far as sets and costuming but I promise you Robert Deniro, Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando could not have saved this script.

Another laughable character or caricature I should say is Conor Dubin playing Charles Mintz. This is the greedy Jewish guy who is counting his money and scheming to thwart the talented white guy you used to see in movies from the 40s. I felt embarrassed for everyone involved whenever his character was on screen.

Walt Before Mickey is really on the Unauthorized True Story level Lifetime has been churning out for the likes of Saved by the Bell or 90210. It’s hero main flaw is not being able to pay people because he dreams too big.

Evidently there were a lot of problems in the making of the film. One report I read crew members were walking off set, actors didn’t get paid and they had to finda new director after starting filming. There are times when you can’t hear characters and editing and focus will be sloppy.

The editing was also badly done. In one scene Walt’s boys will pay his rent and practically lay down in traffic for him and then minutes later he is storming into the office throwing things off of desks and making a mess (the bad movie sign of stress). All of the characters are inconsistent like that and despite the best efforts by the actors it ends up feeling embarrassing.

There’s another movie coming out this year about young Walt called As Dreamers Do and that looks equally cringe-worthy and he’s talking to a mouse in that one as well!

I loved Saving Mr Banks so there is proof a Disney bio pic could be good but they have to be actual films and not visuals for the Walt Disney Sunday School course. The great man certainly deserves better that is for sure.

Here is a trailer to Walt Before Mickey if you want to get more of an idea.

Overall Score- D-

Did the Right Film Win? 2013 Animated Oscars

October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Hi guys! We are up to 2013 in my series on the Animated Oscars and I have a special treat for you! Queen Elsa has come to visit to review all 5 films!

I admit in my review for the Disney Canon of Frozen I was a little defensive and perhaps overly concerned with trolls. This time I took a different approach and just decided to have fun with it. I know people feel all kinds of ways about Frozen and I explained it as best as I could. But there are plenty of great animated films for everyone so hopefully you can enjoy hearing my thoughts on one I enjoy.

The other 4 films are also worth seeing (no Shark Tale skunks in this year!).

Ernest and Celestine- Done by some of the same team that did The Illusionist and The Triplets of Belleville. This is a watercolor sketchbook style story about an unlikely friendship between a mouse and a bear. They kind of become bandits and the friendship evolves over time and then when both are put on trial they teach their societies something important about love, labeling and racism. A real gem of an animated film (and can also be very funny).

Despicable Me 2- I think the Despicable Me movies are just ok and I wasn’t a big fan of Minions, so I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Despicable Me 2 on the rewatch. I think the disappointment of Minions actually made me appreciate this film even more. It has a lot of solid laughs, which didn’t happen in Minions. I really like seeing Gru with the 3 little girls and being an overprotective Dad. The Minions are also funnier in small doses than the main attraction. It’s no masterpiece but a decent comedy for kids.

The Wind Rises- The strongest competition for Frozen. A great film that just gives us the life of a man and we decide what we think of him and his dreams. It is a story about hope and how a dream can carry you through tough times. It is a magic-free film from Miyazaki about the life of a airplane designer named Jiro during World War II. It made my top 50 animated countdown so clearly I love it. It goes without saying the animation is stunning.

The Croods- This was a new one for me from Dreamworks. I’d heard bad things about the film and you know what? I actually enjoyed it. I liked it was about a family and thought the script was pretty funny. I liked how the created new animals and world for them to meet. It made it unpredictable and surprising. I liked the voice cast especially Nicholas Cage who has a freak-out even animated! It’s not a masterpiece but liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I’d still give the Oscar to Frozen because I think it has the best characters, music, story and everything else. One of my favorite animated films from Disney. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 🙂

Is Animation for Children?

October 12, 2015October 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Today I want to talk about a topic that is constantly at the forefront of the online animation fandom discussion. Is animation for kids? In fact, just last week I called in with a question to the Rotoscopers about why Hotel Transylvania 2 would have Mel Brooks, a star probably not familiar to children, for only 15 minutes of the film? To me that makes no sense. They had some insight but Mason said ‘animation isn’t for kids’. So evidently Mel Brooks in his mind was brought into the film for the adults watching not the children.

Fair enough. I can buy that but I do have a few things to say on this topic.

As far as I can see it you have 3 groupings of animated films.

You have films made for just children.

movies for kids2 — This collage is just 4 movies made primarily for children. Whether the are good movies is up for debate. The target demographic is why I picked them.

These are movies you drop the kids off and they have a great experience. But they aren’t made for adults nor should they have to be. There are even different ages of children films like say Sesame Street is made for kindergarten aged children and it won’t appeal to older kids. Not everything should have to be everything to everyone. That said it is not an excuse to be lazy just because ‘it is for kids’.

Then you have movies that are made for adults.

These movies are often rated R or a hard PG-13. They are pretty rare but they can be a beautiful part of the animated landscape. In these films typically there is little to no attempt to appeal to small children as the content is not appropriate for them. Whether they are fine for older children and teenagers is up to parents, but the primary audience is mature adults. These films I treat like any live action film for adults. Some of them have content I can tolerate and others are too much.

Then we get to movies that are made for both children and adults.

I would say this is the majority of animated films. It certainly includes all the Disney Canon films, all Pixar, Dreamworks and Studio Ghibli. None of these studios have made films that are exclusively adult that I am aware of.

Let’s take a film like Hunchback of Notre Dame. I got a lot of flack in my review for pointing out the marketing of the film. I showed the Hunchback nursery rhyme tape and the Burger King kids meal tie-in. Why did I do this? Because it was to counter anyone who might claim ‘well that movie was made for adults’. My response is ‘no it’s not’. It was clearly made and marketed to children; therefore, I have the right to call it out when I feel like the content is not appropriate for children. If they wanted to make a movie like Akira or Chico and Rita that is for adults I would applaud them but that’s not what Disney did. They added singing gargoyles to appeal to children so when I see disturbing violence and sexuality frankly discussed it is within my rights to say ‘wait a minute…’.

If you are fine with that content for your kids no judgement from me, but I at least think it is worth discussing the value of such content in a film aimed at children. It was made with kids in mind therefore it should be judged as such.

Return to Oz is another one people claim ‘it wasn’t made for kids’. Hogwash. You don’t make a movie with a moose sled that sings if you aren’t trying to appeal to children. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask questions of whether the content is reasonable for kids. Some say yes, I say no. I guess that’s not animation but it scared the begeebees out of me as a kid. You’ve got a Dorothy tied down and given electro shock therapy and wheelies and a hallway of heads marketed and made for kids…Are you kidding me?

Minions is another recent example. It is a film clearly aimed at children. They are the one’s who love the Minions most and yet we get boob, butt and torture jokes. That’s not okay in a film for children in my book. Perhaps I would have been less annoyed if the movie had been funny but it wasn’t so the inappropriate stuff bothered me even more.

But I feel like when I point these things out some are quick to say ‘but Rachel animation isn’t just for kids’. I say some is, some isn’t and when something is made at least partially for them there are boundaries I don’t think should be crossed. I just don’t.

Kids have a very limited time period to mold their intellects, moral centers and judgement, so the entertainment they see should be carefully chosen. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be challenged by a film like Wall-e or Fantasia that is artistically difficult or have an occasional joke that goes over their heads, but we should error on the side of caution. It is also okay to introduce them to difficult topics like death, depression, or anxiety without it becoming unseemly. Song of the Sea, Inside Out even Lion King are great examples of films for kids that helped them contemplate adult topics in an appropriate way.

The other day a friend was asking me if I thought her kids would like Over the Garden Wall and as completely brilliant as I think the series is it was hard for me to answer. It is pretty scary for a child under 6. Scares are perhaps the area with the most leeway and variance depending on the kids. Some kids would have no problem with Return to Oz but I did. I hated The Rescuers because the idea of being abducted and forced down a cave was scary. Other kids love that movie so that’s where careful parenting comes in.

The truth is I ask the same question of live action films like Marvel or Harry Potter but most of those films are made for teenagers over 13. Most animated films are PG or lower and that means sometimes parents need guidance (Parental Guidance is what PG means after all!). So as bloggers we can provide a service to parents to help them know what elements of a film are not appropriate for children. I think that is a very good thing and I hope I help out my friends with kids in that department.

Regardless, I don’t think it is wrong to ask the question of an animated film ‘is this appropriate for kids’? With the exception of the adults only films, most animated movies are made with kids at least tangentially in mind. I don’t know how that can even be argued. As I see it, it is a fact and one the studios make billions of dollars on in merchandising and marketing.

So I will continue to ask if these animated films are for kids, and if they aren’t, I’ll tell you. That’s my commitment to all of you!

Good Dinosaur 2nd Full Trailer Review

October 8, 2015October 8, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

You guys all know how much I love Pixar (and if you don’t look at my series of Pixar Reviews). So it is such a treat this year to have 2 Pixar movies!!!! And the cool thing is they are both so different. Inside Out we got a thoughtful, funny, moving story of the inside of a little girls mind. And in Good Dinosaur we are getting a Finding Nemo-like adventure of a dinosaur named Arlo trying to find his family. He meets a boy named Spot who becomes his travel-mate and he also meets a group of t-rex dinosaurs who he appears to be friends with.

I don’t know a whole lot else about the story but they just released a new trailer yesterday and it looks like a beautiful film. I am so impressed with the realism of the plants, water, and other scenery. I am also excited about the relationship between Arlo and Spot. It looks like it is going to have a ton of heart to it. The only thing I am not sold on yet is the design of the T-rex dinosaurs. They look a little unfinished for Pixar so I hope they are still working on them and will be better in final film.

What did you guys think of the new trailer? Here are some more of my thoughts.

International Trailer

US Trailer

Did the Right Film Win? 2012 Animated Oscars

October 7, 2015October 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So I finally finished my video on the 2012 Oscars. Sorry this one took me so long (and it was a pain to edit today also!).

In 2012 we had 5 nominees and they all have their strengths.

Brave– I recently talked about that in my Pixar review. It is a flawed film that doesn’t deliver what it promises in the first 15 minutes. It is supposed to be an epic legend but turns out to be a domestic dispute between a mother and a daughter. I don’t mind that but it is a letdown when we are promised something mythic. I do like Merida, the music and the animation is top notch. I personally feel they took a lot of the lessons from Brave and used them to make Frozen better.

Paranorman- My favorite Liaka film and a film that made my top 50 animated films (so clearly I like it). I really like the character of Norman and the fresh take they have on the bully narrative with the bullied becoming the bully. I think it is very scary and funny with unique world building and character design.

Frankenweenie- This was a new one for me. I had avoided it because I really don’t care for Tim Burton’s style of movies. However, I must admit that I thought it was charming. I really liked the relationship between Victor and Sparky. It makes you want to cry when he loses his dog and all the homages to the classic horror films are a lot of fun. I also enjoy how they made it in black and white. Overall a very entertaining film with a lot of heart.

Pirates Band of Misfits- One of Aardman’s best films with incredible attention to detail it is an underrated film. They pack in the laughs and yet still tell a good story with the Captain wanting to win Pirate of the Year and his interactions with both Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria. If you haven’t seen it trust me it is worth a watch!

Wreck-it Ralph– A film that starts out and ends strong but gets mired in a bland Sugar Rush world in the middle section. Most people love this film but I think it is good but not perfect. I like the character of Ralph but Vanellope I find annoying. With the power cord train station they promise you all the worlds of the video games and yet spend 75 minutes in Sugar Rush, which to me is a disappointment. But it is still an enjoyable film. The villain reveal is done very well and I love Sergeant Tamora.

Like I said in the video, I think most people would pick Wreck-it Ralph for 2012 Oscar. I can totally see that. Of course, Brave won in a bit of an upset. I personally would give it to Paranorman but I know I’m in the deep minority on that. They are all enjoyable films. 🙂

What would be your pick?

Martian Movie Review

October 4, 2015October 9, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Guys I’ve got a great movie to tell you about!!

First, I want to say that I finished reading the book The Martian by Andrew Weir this week and loved it. I normally don’t like a lot of modern novels but this book resisted the modern cliche of having the lead character be all brooding and conflicted. It had the audaciousness to have a lead current-day character that is actually likable!!! I seriously feel like that is so rare in modern books (even YA we get a lot of Bellas and dystopian brooding characters snooze…).

In both the movie and the book I loved the character of Mark Watney and found even the smallest victories compelling. Plus, the overall story of his rescue is so exciting!

If you don’t know The Martian is about an astronaut named Mark (Matt Damon) who is left in a storm by his crew on Mars. Each day then presents Mark with a series of problems, which he uses his know-how as a botanist and scientist to solve.

I never thought I would be so excited for a character growing potatoes but I’m telling you in both the book and movie it is so thrilling when he harvests crops on Mars just based on his ingenuity and smarts.

He’s also such a likable character. In the movie and book much of his personality is presented through daily logs that he does. In these entries he is serious but also extremely funny. It feels like a well-rounded real person. Matt Damon is just nerdy enough and cool enough to pass off both sides of Mark’s personality. It really worked!

It is perhaps easy to compare The Martian to Interstellar because both have Matt Damon as a marooned astronaut but they are totally different films. One is a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life and the connection of individuals and the other is an engrossing action movie about a man trying to get rescued and survive.

It is perhaps closer to Gravity but that is really more of a thriller with Sandra Bullock’s character being much less of an expert and more a helpless pedestrian in space who has to figure out a way home. The tone in films is very different. I loved all 3 films so it is good company any way!

The surrounding players around Damon really helped as well. To me there wasn’t a single misfire in the cast. Director Ridley Scott did a great job and that is saying something considering some recent misfires like Exodus: Gods and Kings. Jessica Chastain, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, and more play the crew that leaves Mark for dead. For not being in that many scenes they are fleshed out characters that have to make difficult decisions about their lives verses one man left behind. Throughout the movie there is a looming question- ‘how valuable is one human being?’.

Jeff Daniels is great as the head of NASA. He has to deal with the bureaucratic side of things and could have been a one note bad man executive character but he’s not. He’s practical but wants to do what is right as well. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the mission director who becomes an advocate for Mark and in a way helps narrate the story back at home. Kristen Wiig is the PR rep for NASA and she does a good job being practical like needing a good photo of Mark on Mars to sell the public on him while still intensely caring for him too.

Sean Bean is a director who refuses to see the practical, bureaucratic side of things and Donald Glover is a young astronomer who has a breakthrough that helps the rescue. They all make such good use of their minimal screen time.

I was totally engrossed in this picture. It is the kind of film you want to finish and cheer. And this works because Mark is such a good person. You want to believe in the value of one person and that such effort would be made to rescue the one. A side of me kind of wishes it was a true story especially when the Chinese get involved. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all rooting for the same humans?

With Gravity there is a sense of relief when she is free from danger but it’s the kind of relief that you get at the end of a thriller. The bad guy (outer space) is defeated and the character can breath. The Martian is a triumph of human being over insane odds so it has more a tone of a Rocky movie or a sports movie with the underdog finishing victorious!

It’s a cliche but I literally was on the edge of my seat. I was leaning as close to the screen as I could get I was so anxious for everything to work out. I couldn’t have been more absorbed in the film. And just as in the book each victory for Mark makes you smile. It’s so satisfying!!

As far as content it is on a whole pretty tame. There are 4 F words and a few other profanities. You do see Matt Damon’s butt in a scene and he does surgery on himself that is bloody. That’s it. I have to say I would feel comfortable taking mature kids and teens to The Martian. It actually could inspire kids to see so many creative uses for science and math used by a variety of different personalities.

I loved The Martian in both book and movie form. I recommend reading the book first and then seeing the movie if you can. I did not see it in 3D or on Imax but I am sure it is cool in those formats.

Definitely my favorite live action film of the year. Go see it!

Overall Grade- A+ Content Grade – B-

Here’s my youtube review.

September Youtube Videos

October 3, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Some of my youtube videos from September I haven’t shared yet on the blog. If you want to subscribe that would be awesome.

All my Disney fans may particularly like this one.

I had a lot of fun making these videos so if you have any ideas for reviews or tags I could do let me know. Thanks!

The Visit Review

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Yesterday was a very sad day for me at the movies. I was going to see the Iron Giant special release and went to the Draper theater instead of The District and by the time I noticed it I was too late to make the film. 🙁

I had my popcorn and icee in tow and not wanting to just leave I decided to go see The Visit. My brother really liked it as well as some friends and I have been trying to expand my movie comfort zone a little bit with a few more scary movies. So I guess take this review with a grain of salt because it after all wasn’t Iron Giant…wa, wa, wa.

So what did I think of The Visit?

Well, I thought it was a thoroughly generic predictable horror movie. I am not the most versed in the genre but I could predict everything that was going to happen. And of course because it is M Night Shyamalan we get a big twisteroo that was so obvious even for him. So no I wasn’t really a fan.

There are some good things about it. First, the performances are all fine. Most of Shyamalan’s movies have fine performances. The two kids are particularly good with Olivia DeJonge as Rebecca and Ed Oxenbound (from Alexander Terrible Day).

The Visit is also much tighter than the typical Shyamalan film. There are no speeches and philosophizing and thank goodness he doesn’t cast himself in the movie (I’m talking to you Lady in the Water). This may be Shyamalan’s tightest film with really no dead time where the story isn’t moving along.

But just because something is better than garbage doesn’t mean it is good. I’d rather watch the transformers movies than watch most of Shyamalan’s films and that’s saying something. I’d sit through Nut Job, Legends of Oz and Hero of Color City before watching The Last Airbender or After Earth again (those were the 3 worst animated films of 2014).

I feel like a lot of people are giving The Visit a pass because it isn’t as bad as The Village or The Happening. I’d agree with them but if it was Johnny Movie Man making the film I think 90% of critics would be giving it a lower score as a generic predictable horror film. I mean is it really as good as The Conjuring or something like that?

I don’t want to give any spoilers away but basically the film is about 2 kids that go for a visit to see their grandparents. Their mother is estranged from them but they want to see the grandkids. She sends them off without showing them a picture. Don’t you think a mother who is estranged from her parents would want to show the kids a picture of the parents? Especially if they are getting on a train and having to meet strangers? I found that highly improbable. And if things were so bad between mother and parents with no pictures or physical contact wouldn’t she have them watched out for by a friend of hers from high school or something like that? It all seemed hard to believe.

But fine accept that the Grandparents seem lovable at first but then weird stuff starts happening and at first they discount it as old people stuff, but it keeps building to a point where they really should be asking more questions and seeking help. We also find out where the Grandparents volunteer each week, which I won’t give away because it gives away a lot.

The thing with most horror movies is that characters get signs to leave or get out of the house and then they make the wrong decision every time. This movie is no different. The ending is tense but the kids had so many opportunities to leave and they keep going back for another interview or another discussion that it defies credulity even for children.

The other bone I have to pick with this film is it is shot in found footage style which is annoying but also makes no sense to the story. There is no way the Grandparent characters would allow the filming to take place or participate in it. It doesn’t make sense with their characters or personality traits in every other way in the film. The found footage also causes a lot of telling rather than showing and it just makes the whole movie seem so unbelievable. I understand they shoot films this way because it is cheap but it comes off looking just that and again it doesn’t work with the characters and story we are being told. It would have been so much better if it had been shot like a regular film. I haven’t been a fan of Shyamalan’s films but he usually shoots them adequately.

So that’s why in the end the movie felt really stupid to me. The characters behaved in nonsensical or stupid ways and the story didn’t really make sense or was completely obvious so not very scary (and I get scared pretty easily).

Like I said, I really feel like people are giving this a pass because it isn’t as bad as Shyamalan’s other films but is it really good? I guess if you like generic predictable horror movies than this is for you. As for me I thought it was lame but then again I was expecting to see Iron Giant so take it for what it’s worth. Sigh…

If you want to be scared I think The Gift is much better. It is still creeping me out when I think about it. It’s way more realistic, surprising and scary with really good performances.

Overall Grade- C- for the good performances and tightness of story.

Fantastic 4 Review

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So with much trepidation I finally saw Fantastic 4. It is of course the huge flop produced by Fox and I guess the question is- ‘is it as bad as people say it is’. I guess it depends on what lens you are looking for and I think how invested you are in comic books and superhero movies. I have little investment in either so in the end I thought it was mediocre with some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen.

The script is also kind of lazy. It is an origin story which is very predictable with the origin part coming very late in the movie. I’m surprised Simon Kinberg who wrote the terrific X-men Days of Future Past would allow for such a cliched story to get approved. I understand there were problems on the set and the studio interfered but that wouldn’t effect the entire story and the extremely predictable writing.

I also can’t give director Josh Trank a pass either because the story from start to finish was cliched and silly. It wasn’t just one scene that you could tell the studio messed with; although the last 20 minutes is definitely worse than the rest. It’s surprising with Trank because he made Chronicle a superhero film on a small scale that I really love. The special effects in that film on a minimal budget are much better than anything here. I don’t know what he was thinking with the special effects. The editing was also really amateurish.

I also didn’t like Reg E Cathey as Dr Franklin Storm. For being the father of 2 of the characters he seemed flat, unemotional and like he was delivering motivational speeches instead of being an authentic character. I always felt like he was reciting lines and not feeling the emotions of a parent.

Toby Kebbell is also shockingly bad as Victor Von Doom (one of the worst names in superhero villains IMO). He was so great in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but it’s not really his fault here. He is given little to do and the special effects are so bad. People who were critical of Ultron in Avengers 2 need to take a look at Dr Doom because the characters aren’t that different but one is executed so much better.

I can’t overstate how bad I thought the special effects were. Especially every time we see Mr Fantastic (Reed Richards played by Miles Teller)’s arms stretch I couldn’t believe it. Also there were a lot of times when it was so obvious they were in front of green screens and it looked extremely fake. I guess The Thing (Ben Grimm by Jamie Bell) looked ok but he had this strange voice that was distracting.

Other than that I can’t think of a special effect that worked. They were on a syfy Sharknado level. (have you gotten the point that I hated the special effects…)

As far as things I liked I thought the 4 young leads were all good in their parts and I could see them being a good Fantastic 4 in another movie with better special effects and script. They save a lot of scenes with their charisma and chemistry. The music by Marco Beltrami and Phillip Glass was also a standout.

I thought they could have gone somewhere interesting with using the Fantastic 4 to help the military which they do with the Thing. On one hand he saves lives. On the other he is an agent of war. There was something there they could have worked with. The sets all look nice and while the origin of the super powers takes way too long I thought it had ok moments. I was also surprised how bloody the ending was for a pg-13. Normally blood=R

I would have been a lot angrier if it had been like Transformers: Age of Extinction and been almost 3 hours. This was 100 minutes so it left me just shrugging. And again I am not a huge superhero person. If I was I am sure this would have engendered a Maleficent response from me because I love that character and world. As it is I just kind of shrugged it off. It’s a lame superhero movie. Not the first and won’t be the last. In fact, the genre is probably past due for a stinker. Ha.

If you are curious to see if it is as bad as people say it is go see it. I think you will be shocked by the bad special effects like I am but I have friends who liked it. I’ve warmed up a lot to superhero movies in the last few years with movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers 1 and 2, Captain America 2 and Big Hero 6. This is way, way, way, way, beneath that level but I had a few little things I liked. Overall, I just thought it was super mediocre.

Overall Grade- D