Catch Up Reviews: Fantastic Four, Tomorrowland, and Everest

Fantastic Four

Tomorrowland

Everest

It’s a hat trick of not that great movies!

### Fantastic Four

Yes, I did see this movie. You know what? It’s not as bad as you’ve heard. I mean, it’s not good, but the first half is pretty ok, when they’re setting up characters and there are some team building moments. But then you get to the back half and it’s just…. ok it’s terrible.

So basically don’t see Fantastic Four. It’s no wonder that director Josh Trank tried to distance himself from this film as it was coming out, blaming studio interference and claiming we would have loved his original vision. This film has clearly been meddled with and horribly cut for time (there are scenes in the trailer that aren’t the movie) in ways that make some things only barely make sense, but as I was watching I got the sense that whatever they cut would have, at best, only elevated the movie to mediocre.

It’s a shame, because there are a lot of people Fantastic Four that I like, but it’s a bad movie.

### Tomorrowland

Someone has clearly read Atlas Shrugged. Set in a world where the special people are whisked way to Tomorrowland to work on changing the world from behind the scenes, but Tomorrowland closed it’s doors years ago because the world isn’t good enough anymore.

Sure, it’s pretty Radian, but it’s real crime is that it’s just kinda boring. Sure there are some good sets and effects but Brad Bird seems like he’s more interesting in creating those sets and effects than he is in telling stories (this was a problem with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, too).

Everyone in it is ok, but just OK but there’s a lack of chemistry between most of the main characters, and there’s a weird moment when you realize that George Clooney’s character is in love with a perpetually adolescent robot girl. Yeah, you read that right.

Tomorrowland is worth checking out if you enjoy pretty things because it’s full of pretty things, but it’s a movie that fails at being about succeeding, so do with that information what you will.

### Everest

Last but not least, Everest, is also kinda boring. Based on the true story of an ill fated expedition to summit the titular mountain which you’ve probably already read about in _Into Thin Air_ (or the TV movie based on it).

This film might as well be a documentary. Even if you don’t know what’s going to happen going in, when all the stuff happens there’s not a lot of drama. I felt bad when the one normal guy character died after completing his dream of getting to the peak, but that’s about it. In a movie where it’s clear from the get go that most people are not going to make it it’s hard to create drama, and this movie doesn’t create drama. At the end there is a helicopter rescue which in real life was a hell of a thing to pull off but in the movie is just another thing that happens in the story. There’s even a moment when Sam Worthington shows up (remember Sam Worthington?) and starts climbing Everest once he realizes his friend is in trouble, but he just gets to base camp and then stays there and mans a radio.

Look, I don’t want to diminish the deaths of these people or the experiences of those that survived. I did a bunch of research about the disaster after watching the movie and everyone involved went through a terrible ordeal. I just wish they’d been able to make a more compelling movie about it.