I'b sick. I hab a code.

I was too sickly last night to accomplish much besides ordering up some spicy thai soup from across the street, and watching the Fantastic Four. I'd heard FF pretty much sucked, but never bothered to bounce it out of my Netflix queue.

It pretty much sucked, but it was all my embattled immune system could keep up with. The whole Johnny Storm "extreme sports guy" subplot was offensively irritating. But my main gripe was a general soullessness of the film in general. I just didn't really care about the heroes, the villain, or anything much at all. (Again, it may have been the germs.)

Interestingly, they seem to have had some problems with the special effects used for Mr. Fantastic's stretchy-abilities. The Human Torch's fire stuff looks great. The Invisible Girl's powers are conveyed in a fairly understandable fashion. And the Thing looks like a guy in a rubber suit, because he is. But almost every shot of Mr. Fantastic stretching happens just off screen, or else they cut into the shot just as he's finishing or something. My guess is the stretchy-effects looked totally hokey, and they cut around it. Just a guess, though, based on some clunky editorial choices. It's odd that fire is easier to fake than stretchiness.

Probably the biggest reason I rented the movie, though, was because Ioan Gruffudd plays Reed Richards, and he was great in the Hornblower Series on A&E. If you're a fan of the Sharpe's series with Sean Bean, or of the Patrick O'Brian books, then you should definitely check out the Hornblower movies. All are available from Netflix, and Gruffudd is really good in them. Good enough that I watched a fairly crappy movie last night, hoping he'd salvage it.

Steve