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Reviews
Fantastic Four (2005)
Not so fantastic
If you go to 1 movie this summer, don't let it be this one.
When I went to see the Fantastic Four with a few friends of mine and I did not expect too much from it to begin with. The trailer wasn't promising much and the overload of marketing was making my spider senses tingle that there was something wrong with this movie.
The first thing that I noticed was that the story is fast-paced, but in it's fast pace it just skips certain sub-plots that are started at the beginning. Furthermore, if you have seen any of the other superhero movies that have come out in the past years, you might as well skip this one, because it is nothing more than a summary of all clichés that you might expect from a superhero movie. It fails to surprise at any point. There is no sense of story or goal for our 'heroes' throughout the film witch leaves the only thing that is slightly entertaining (the relationship between 'the human torch' and 'the thing') to be the only story worth following.
The scenario seems to be nothing more than an excuse for the stunt scenes that 'Johnny Storm' (Chris Evans) gets to preform. And if the effects or stunts were good or worthwhile this wouldn't be so bad. But the effects are a real stinker. Mr Fantastic is not made of rubber but on screen he is clearly made of pixels. The other effects seem dated and not exiting at all.
Even worse than that, the acting is substandard: none of the actors seem to take their part seriously and I can hardly blame them with the story being as unbelievable and shaky as it is. The original material is partly to blame for this, but those 'other' superhero movies (Xmen 1 and 2) have proved that it is possible to make an unbelievable, slightly ridiculous story into one that is not only entertaining but also has some depth.
And that is what I missed most in this movie. Any characters with real depth and believability.
Miss this stinker of a movie and save your money for some the other excellent comic book adaptations that have come out this summer; Batman begins, Sin city, etc.
Vet hard (2005)
Pleasantly Simple
I went to see Vet hard (or as it is called in Belgium 'volle gas' ) with expectations that weren't too high. My experience with former dutch attempts at action movies, especially the ones as far back as the 'flodder' movies and other dick maas attempts like 'amsterdamned', were not too good. And the trailer of vet hard did not promise any improvement.
What a sigh of relief I could breathe when I watched the movie! The story is erratic and makes no sense at times, but the movie does not aspire or pretend to be a feat of high story telling ability. Instead it focuses on it's best assets; fun action sequences which are exhilarating at times, despite the limited budget, and slapstick-like humor provided by a fantastic Jack Wouterse in the role of 'Bennie' and Peter van den Begin as 'Vuk'.
The acting overall ranges from adequate to excellent, the best being provided by Kurt Rogiers who portrays a necrophiliac serial-rapist in a way that he is almost likable. Jack Wouterse plays a convincing and extremely funny overweight Bennie and carries the role of the main character well. I wasn't too exited by the acting of Bracha van Doesburgh however, who looks great, but, as a fist timer tries her best to portray her character as believable as possible but fails in doing so at times.
All in all Vet Hard has it's weak points, a lot of them actually, but it is easy to forgive them. The movie was made with love and care and it is clearly visible the cast had a lot of fun making it.
An 8 out of 10