"A Catchy Title Should Go Here, Too"

Sorry for the two-part column... this computer was going nuts and I had to shut it off and restart. As I was saying...

The Fantastic Four actually appeared in an extremely low-budget movie back in 1994 that was made strictly for contractual reasons and never got an official release. I have the feeling, though, that aside from the higher-class effects, there may not have been that much difference.

As fans know, the Four were a group of family and friends who got zapped by the rays of a "cosmic storm" while on a scientific mission into space and turned into a group of super-powered characters, along with their future nemesis, Victor Von Doom (soon to become "Doctor Doom"). The fact that the characters acted like real people, didn't always get along, and had the same everyday problems that "normal" people have was pretty radical stuff back in 1961. But other characters have done it better since then... most notably Spider-man... and the characters don't have all that much unique to differentiate them from your basic, standard super-characters.

The acting isn't much help, either... half the cast is unknown and never lets you forget WHY, and the other consists of TV performers who are clearly out of their depth on the big screen. The dialog isn't cring-inducing awful like in some comics adaptations I won't name ("Elektra"), but it never rises above "Look out, Ben! Von Doom's behind you!" and similar lines. And unlike "Spider-Man", the Four never really become realistic, believable people.

Mind you, "Fantastic Four" LOOKS great, and there are some scenes that sweep you away in spite of yourself. And it rarely is a genuinely bad film. But there's nothing in it that tons of other similar films haven't done as well, or that a number of others have actually done BETTER. It's neither bad or good enough to make me work up much enthusiasm one way or the other about it. If you're a major fan of the comic, you might want to check it out.Or, you might just prefer to catch one of the "Spider-Man" movies again instead.

6. "Dark Water". Based on a novel by the author of the book that inspired the original Japanese film "Ringu" (basis for "The Ring"), this is yet another Americanized version of a recent Japanese horror film. It has its moments, but they don't ultimately add up to much.

In this movie, a young divorced single mom, still fighting her ex-husband for custody of their daughter, moves into a run-down new building in which too many strange things appear to be happening, particularly in the apartment directly above her, with its mysterious leaking water and strange sounds when nobody is supposed to be in the apartment.

I greatly admire a really good scare film (like "The Blair Witch Project") that achieves its scares without ever showing you what the menace is, and aI like that "Dark Water" attempts that... but there are only just so many ways to make tubs and sinks overflowing look sinister and menacing. It doesn't take long before you just want to go "So, just call the plumber already!" And faucets spouting ominous dark liquid haven't been scary since at least back when the original "Amityville Horror" over-used that gimmick back in 1979.

The film definitely has a great cast and crew... class actors like Jennifer Connelly, John C. Riley ("Chicago"), Pete Poselthwaite ("The Usual Subjects") and Tim Roth ("Reservoir Dogs"), a script by Rafael Iglesias, who gave Jeff Bridges possiblty the best role of his career in "Fearless", and featuring the American debut of director Walter Salles of "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries". But for all the high pedigrees of its creators, the movie comes across as every horror movie cliche that could be dug up out of the Movie Maker's Guide To Genre Formulas. If ever there was an over-qualified group of folks to be working on a movie like this, this is that group.

So... one again, we have a group of creative people working on material that's beneath them. Do you really want to go to a theatre and pay even matinee prices to see that? That's what I'm here for...

7. "March Of The Penguins." OKAY... anyone who knows me personally at all knows that there's no way I'm going to give this documentary anything less than a rave. There was never any chance of anything else. I've been a fanatic about penguins for just over twenty years, I collect anything penguin-related, I go see them in zoos. So a documentary about a year in the life of a colony of Emperor penguins in the Antarctic is my kind of film.

Therefore, this will be a shorter review, but I will say that the crowd at the screening I saw was made up of a very diverse bunch of adults, kids, families, solo moviegoers such as myself... and I'm pretty sure they weren't all penguin fanatics. After 80 minutes of watching the funny, endearing, and amazingly tough birds survive and even thrive in one of the most incredibly harsh environments on the face of the planet, they applauded at the end of the film and from the overheard conversations on the way out clearly were enthralled by the film. The Emperor penguin shouldn't be able to survive, much less raise its family and achieve any kind of real life in this environment, and watching how they accomplish the seemingly impossible will likely be as fascinating an experience to you as it was to the audience I saw this film with. And if it isn't, you'll at least know a little more about me and what I find fascinating. Not that I'd recomment the movie just on that basis, certainly. But I definitely WOULD recomment it for the penguins.