I always thought it was a Baltic nation, next to Latvia and Lithuania.
Anyway …
I actually did end up seeing this. I wouldn’t call it a great movie; I wouldn’t even call it a good movie. But I found it almost as entertaining as Batman Begins. I agree with previous posts that identified its biggest weakness as liking Dr. Doom’s origin to the Fantastic Four’s. Also, Reed and Susan should both be a lot older and Doom should be even older.
Estonia, too, and the fictional nation of Symkaria. I realized the mistake after I posted but decided against the correction.
I knew very little about the comic, and had already heard some of the lukewarm reviews of the movie, so I went with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised - not the best superhero movie ever, but fun, and with some moments where I actually said out loud, “Cool!”
I liked the Johnny Storm character, especially. He was having a blast, and it showed. His prank on Ben Grimm after Grimm wakes up back on Earth was hilarious. And I laughed out loud when Johnny snapped his fingers, showing the flame to the others: “Now imagine this… (waves his hands excitedly)… ALL OVER!” Very funny.
I could’ve done without the Helen Keller moment of the blind girl feeling Grimm’s face, though. Oy.
“Fantastic Four” exceeded my expectations, I’m glad to say. Its early box office has been very good, much BTE, and I’ll bet a sequel is inevitable.
Saw it this weekend as well, and like others side, it wasnt great but it was good. It had more humor than I expected (Reed faling asleep on the keyboard was a good one) but I would like to have seen more team work.
The whole team just jumpes together at the end and takes down Doom like they been working together for years. I would have perfered a few scenes where they at least tried to work as a team first, but thats a minor thing.
It was no X-Men, but still worth a viewing.
According to http://members.aol.com/doomscribe/latveria.htm#MAP (reprinted from an old Official Marvel Universe Handbook) both Latveria and Symkaria are in the Balkans.
(Sorry, the Inset Hyperlink function isn’t working right now on this computer.)
$56million opening weekend. disgusting.
i’m slowly losing faith in the viewing public.
On still further reflection, it makes sense that Latveria is in the vicinity of Transylvania (i.e. Balkan) considering Doom’s established knowledge of gypsy magic and whatnot. I recall, however, one story that described Symkaria (fiction home of Silver Sable) managing to avoid Soviet absorption along with its neighbor, Latveria, and the implication that their neighbors Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia did not.
But I was likely misreading, so the Balkans it is. In any case, playing Doom in the movie as a stereotypical eighties corporate shark is a waste.
It probably didn’t mean absorption into the Soviet Union which would imply Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but absorption into the Soviet Bloc, which would very well apply to a country that borders on Hungary, Romania and/or Bulgaria.
Why? It’s not a bad movie, as comic-book adaptations go. It’s not a patch on either Spider-Man or X-Men films, but it’s not sappy or especially manipulative, putting aside the occasional flag-waving.
how would you compare it to Batman Begins, which only made $48mil opening weekend?
the weakening of my faith in the viewing public began two years ago when Kangaroo Jack was the highest grossing movie on it’s opening weekend.
Dude … You had faith in the viewing public? You’ve got a TV, right?
Well, I thought BB was a better film, but any brain cells I’d dedicated to outrage over undeserved box-office revenue were burned out when Titanic crossed the billion mark, and I haven’t bothered to replace them on the basis that doing so is a elitist waste of time.
Incidentally, I saw BB and FF for free. It’s good to have friends who work for radio stations and are memebrs of sci-fi clubs.
well ya, but i don’t watch anything on it except dvds. am i missing something?
nothing an elitist does is a waste of time, silly. but now that you bring up titanic, i would have to concede the point.
I took my eight-year-old and his friend to see it yesterday. I thought the plot was kinda lame, but the effects were fun. It was a good excuse to get out of the heat, drink a coke and munch on popcorn for a couple hours.
I don’t think it’s a particularly bad movie. I wouldn’t rush out to buy it for my collection. I probably won’t rent it when it comes out.
There were some pretty good one-liners in it…enough to keep me mildly entertained, anyway.
That reminds me – my experience was negatively affected by some rather young children who kept talking loudly throughout the movie. It’s very irritiating that this is considered socially acceptable these days.
Don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before. Sue Storm can create force fields around herself, other people, objects, or a combination, right? And she turns invisible by creating a force field that bends light, right? So why can’t she just include her clothing in the invisibility?
Please don’t shatter my belief that comic book movies are 100% scientifically accurate.
Invisibility is an instinctive thing for her - she doesn’t have enough fine control to do it manually with force fields. So when she goes invisible, her clothing doesn’t.
Although both were rated PG-13, Fantastic Four, IMO, is far more kid-friendly and it seemed that there were more kids.
I admit BB is better, but you haven’t even seen FF yet, have you? It isn’t bad, really, pretty entertaining.
Just got back from the theater. I only paid for a cheap matinee ticket, my expectations were low, and the popcorn was good. I enjoyed it. It’s not a Great Work Of Cinematic Art, but it was entertaining eye-candy.
If you aren’t a raving fanboy, you probably missed a lot of the in-jokes. (I was never a great FF fan, so there were probably a lot that I missed. I did get that Stan Lee’s cameo was in the role of Willie Lumpkin, a long-standing minor character.)
Of course, they botched Doctor Doom. They turned him into a cross between Lightning Lad and Ferro Lad. Sweet. Not only did they mangle one of Marvel’s best characters, but they did so by ripping off two DC characters.The way they finally beat Doom was actually taken from an old X-Men story. And they sort of hinted that if he returns in a sequel, he might more closely resemble the character we know and love to hate.
Chiklis did a pretty good job as Ben Grimm. Johnny Storm was depicted as a self-centered, impulsive, irresponsible a##hole. In other words, exactly like the character in the comicbooks in the 60s and 70s. Griffydd was way too young for the role, but he played the “absent-minded professor” aspect of the character perfectly. And Ms. Alba looked good in spandex.
All in all, I enjoyed it.
Y’know, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the Gone with the Wind, but it was a fun flick.
And I gather they were making Doom more like the “Doctor Van Damme” from Ultimate Fantastic Four. So, at least they weren’t just pulling his new look and abilities out of someone’s backside. (Well, the look, at least. I don’t know about the lightning casting.) Still, even that wasn’t too bad.