The Fantastic Four [Blu-ray]

On the listing for the UK release of the 4K it says “Region B/2 won’t play on US players” why does it keep saying that? 4k discs are NOT region locked! Just got this in the mail today and immediately tested it and sure enough, it played perfectly fine on my 4k player despite the listing saying it won’t play on US players. For future reference, if you purchase and 4k disc from overseas, you don’t have to worry about it not playing on your player because it will. Now I should probably mention this gets 5 stars on simply the transfer alone, this is an outstanding 4k transfer and has no issues whatsoever, the movie itself is another story for another time. If you’re a disc collector and want this specific release then absolutely get it don’t believe the “won’t work on US players” crap. A 4K disc is NOT region locked.

Never thought I'd write a review but here goes. Went in with low expectations and came out pleasantly surprised. There's a lot this movie gets right which I'm sure people will ignore just to jump on the hate bandwagon. I'll go over positives first. The acting was good, not Oscar worthy but it didn't need to be.The actors played the roles they were supposed to play. Visually the film is beautiful. The biggest positive was the characters themselves. Their chemistry was fantastic(pun intended). They react how I assume people who gain inter-dimensional abilities would react. They're terrified. Reed Richards (Miles Teller) especially. All he wants is to fix his friends and there's a real warmth to that. A down to earth feeling. He was definitely one of the driving factors of this film. Now, onto the negatives. I kept checking the timestamp to try to figure out when things would go wrong for the movie. It had a solid start,solid middle, and then the ending was so so bad. I have no idea who decided on the pacing but it was appalling.**********SPOILERS***********I'll just get right to it. Anything at all related to Doctor Doom takes place in the last 20 minutes of the film. Total runtime is about one hour and thirty minutes. We get such good background of Reed Richards(Miles Teller) and Ben Grimm(Jamie Bell), but the other characters just like a cliff note. We don't even really get to see them adjust to the world as they're confined to a military base the majority of the movie.***********END OF SPOILERS**********On a related note of not establishing characters well, there were scenes missing that I feel would've helped pacing a bit and help establish the villain a bit better. Victor Von Doom is an intelligent,charismatic, and borderline psychotic man obsessed with power because of his ego. This film just made him feel like a caveman who discovered fire. The dialogue during the big fight was messy too. It seemed too cheesy/awkward and I love my superhero movies to be extra cheesy but the lines were just weird. It's like the chemistry between the characters melted away for a few minutes and became more robotic. Cool fight though.My final thoughts are mixed but I can honestly say I did enjoy this movie a lot and would recommend it. I'd definitely advise going in with an open mind. Why the 5 Stars? Simple. It was a solid superhero movie. It entertained me and kept me interested in a story I already know. I commend all the actors on trying their best. It wasn't perfect in any way but definitely deserving of another go more than other recent films. I felt the positives outweighed the negatives. It had all the right ingredients, but not the right measurements. This film succeeds(exceeds at a few parts) at telling the story of the Fantastic 4 and fails quite terribly at the same time. A story that needed much more breathing room than the film was given. I absolutely love the things it did right, it makes me sad that are things that went so wrong. I would've hoped for a sequel just so they can iron out all the problems, but I believe Fox split the rights with Marvel now. So we'll see how that goes.

I know I am in the minority here, but I don't really understand the vitriol that this movie inspired. True, it is nothing like any other super hero movie that has come out in the past few years, but isn't a fresh take a good thing? I feel like this story is more like how it would actually be if four people suddenly developed super powers. In most films the hero masters his/her new skills over the course of a musical montage and then is suddenly infallible and easily solves crimes/stops criminals/thwarts supervillains. This movie follows the Fantastic Four over the years long process it takes to figure out how to control/utilize their powers. I also like that they more explore the negative aspects of their new powers (usually only Ben "The Thing" Grimm views his powers in a negative light since his is the only obvious physical transformation while the other three look the same). Most cinematic superheroes think their newfound powers are cool and react to them like a kid who's taken his dad's Ferrari out for the first time, but seriously, if you were bursting into flames or disappearing at random and couldn't figure out how to control it or why it would be useful you probably wouldn't be too excited about it. I didn't mind the dearth of action sequences (a rarity in a superhero flick) because I thought it was interesting to see the characters struggle to figure out their powers and how they would fit into the world now that they were changed. I also thought Victor was a better "villain" because he was truly a sympathetic figure (**SPOILERS**): he was essentially a friend of the four (albeit not a close one and a little closed off) but he was left behind in an alien world and left for dead and spent a year in a hellscape alone. His rage is understandable and that makes the final battle between him and the Fantastic Four that much better. Obviously you are rooting for the Four and saving Earth, but you aren't really rooting against Victor. This movie does have its flaws. Is it ridiculous that these top government scientists are all 18 years old? Yes. Does this movie lack the requisite humor/color of the Marvel cinematic universe? Yes, but again, I happen to think a little variety in the superhero genre is not a bad thing. I don't think this is a great film, superhero or otherwise, but it is an interesting take on the genre and I really enjoyed watching it.