Getting an invitation for a Marvel early screening was meant to be something great in the past. Sadly, I've just got it for this stinker of a movie, and lost two hours of my life. I'm a fan of Josh Trank's Chronicle, so I kept my hopes high, but not much so, as he's a competent filmmaker but more in tone with an indie vibe rather than a blockbuster, in my opinion. I'm so disappointed regarding this movie that I can resume the entire plot in the following few lines: a couple of kids (one a mild-mannered-mad-scientist-in-the-making and an honest-to-God-sports-jock) try for nearly a decade to create a functioning prototype of a phase-quantum-dimensional-shifting device (a teleportation machine, for the layman), getting the attention of a gifted scientist (who happens to have a politically correct bi-racial family) from a government-funded think-tank. Together, they spend HALF (yes, half) the movie trying to make the prototype of the device (now named "Quantum Gate") fully functional and open a portal to Planet Zero (a desolate generic CGI dimension that co-exist with ours), with the unwilling aid of Victor, a hacker-wiz kid who happens to be sadly in love with the only female character in the film, who in turn has a crush for Reed (as you might expect, Reed is utterly oblivious to her most of the film). The whole ordeal feels detached, procedural and boring, but has the very brief quality of portraying them as humans, with flaws. Anyway, as expected (because bad things do happen when you rush experiments), their visit to Planet Zero goes awry when Victor tries (as any scientist might) take a sample. The portal collapses, and Victor is left behind. I must dearly advise to you: it follows one of the most disturbing, un-glamours and painful transformation scenes I've ever seen in a Marvel movie. Their DNA is changed and they have odd molecular-phasing side-effects that can be characterised as "super powers". A great deal of the rest of the film is spent trying to - ironically - reverse the molecular-phasing disease, and we get to see a few neat scenes, while one of them is remorseful and contrite (hiding in South America) and the others begin to use their abilities to become military assets. This goes for a while until out of the blue, Victor (quite understandably bitter with them) decides to destroy our Earth using the Planet Zero portal. He's so good at it that he gets to almost destroy Earth without any complicated laboratory or technology. Then it comes the 10 minute studio-mandated battle where the characters become reluctant heroes (honestly, Reed a melee expert?) and obviously defeat Victor, who "disintegrates" (I don't believe that at all) while the portal finally collapses. After those 10 minutes of low quality CGI extravaganza, they get fully funded by the US Military, and decide to use their side-effects to protect humankind, while searching a cure for their disease (unlike the X-Men and most Marvel characters, the FF have always been in good terms with the US Government and NY authorities). In the end, I was baffled that there was not a single ounce of wonder or enjoyment from their part in their abilities, and that the characters feel underdeveloped, to the point of being hollow jokes compared to their comic book counterparts (especially the latest incarnation). With the exception of Michael B. Jordan and Red E. Cathey, the rest of the cast is AWFUL, their dialogues becoming wholly interchangeable. Really. Write down snippets from the dialogue, and any of the characters can deliver those lines. It's that bad. I'm sure I'll never watch this movie again, and I do hope the sequel never gets made. By the way: this movie isn't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a good reason.
Pretty disappointing and crappy movie.
I suspected a casual and fun movie with this one, maybe with some puzzles and an interesting premise. However the movie disappointed from the start.
For a adaptation from a book I sure hope this was a bad one. You get thrown into the middle of a stoy where suddenly all kinds of stuff happens. I hope this wasn't the case in the original work, because it is one of the major flaws of this movie, and could be explained as the cause of many of its other faults.
The acting was luckily pretty ok, but many of the characters don't add to the story at all and are just filling up empty screen. The sound was to cry off as well. Soundtrack was ok, but many scenes had no music and felt like a soap because of it.
I am all for being creative with sound, but this was just done badly.
Since I won't bore you with pages of irrelevant texts, like the movie does, i will just make a list of the cons and pros.
Cons:
- Paced way too fast
- No build up for a climax (the film was more of a constant climax actually)
- Not getting time to get acquainted with the characters, therefore not caring about there faith.
- Very little character development, except maybe for Gally (Will Poulter)
- Stating many things as impossible without many explanation
- Revealing the endgame in the first act of the movie with a flashback/memory which makes the whole movie unnecessary,
- Also making the whole story as predictable as a Japanese train schedule.
- Inappropriate absent of sound
- Too much unimportant characters
- Did we really need another Hunger Games movie?
- etc.
Pros:
- Nice environment
- Funny but cool looking cyborg creatures
- Doesn't need many attention to follow, so you can check your twitter or facebook feed in the meantime.
The real Hunger Games. Japanese flavour, no american sauce what-so-ever.
