The Man-Thing movie wasn't very good. OK, it was awful. But you probably didn't need me to tell you that. I guess this tells you everything you need to know: "The film was originally intended for a 2004 video release, then upgraded to a theatrical release for Halloween, then back to video and later to the Sci Fi Channel television release it received in 2005."

The Elektra film gets a solid "almost OK" rating from me. More ninjas totally flipping out and killing people definitely would have helped things along, but it had reasonably true-to-the-comics versions of Stick and Typhoid Mary, so it gets credit for that. I probably would have liked it less if we hadn't fast forwarded through most of the "plot".

Now, i have to be careful here, but Fantastic Four may have actually been "pretty good". I caution you, i had just sat through Man-Thing and Elektra, so it's possible that even Nothing But Trouble would have seemed like a good movie by comparison*, but i actually enjoyed FF. Sure, the Dr. Doom character was terrible, sure the Thing looked absolutely awful, sure the plot made very little sense... wait, was i saying this movie was good? Well, it was a fun dumb action movie, let's just leave it at that.

*No way.

When it comes to bad movies, I think its important to remember to have a sense of scale. I mean, it could be so much worse.

But I have to admit that now I actually want to see the Man-Thing movie. Which means I need to get a DVR because its on at 7pm on August 10th on SciFi... in case anyone else wanted to watch.

i didn't think they could make a movie worse than the Hulk. but they did. we fast forwarded thru about 85% of this movie, and i'm still scarred. "A man?? That's some kind of....man-thing!" gawd.

elektra was about on par with the Punisher movie and i could have stomached watching this without the fast forward. i do protest the complete lack of fighting, though. nobody expects the main actors to fight. god knows i don't expect jennifer garner to. but there were plent of opportunities for ninjas to fight other ninjas and they definitely could have gotten tons of martial artists to fill these roles. also, the sheet scene? so bad. i know. you prolly saw Hero and thought "that would be so cool to put in my movie" but you were too stupid to do it right so you just shouldn't have tried. or you should have hired Zhang Yimou. so bad. i suppose if you're marvel and your choices are putting the money into the writing or putting the money into boobies, your choice is pretty clear. i am doing my jennifer garner pursed lips impression now in recognition of your good business sense.

as for the FF, the plot was bad, the dialogue was bad, the Thing looked bad. yeah. and once again, we've gone with boobies. sue storm is supposed to be hot. i got that. but she's also supposed to be the mature older sister, the mother of the group. jessica alba is not that person. they basically checked "hot" off that list of sue storm attributes and said to hell with the rest. i have to say, though, i am totally impressed with her ability to bobble her head so much without giving herself a neck cramp. all that said, it's still prolly the best of the bad marvel movies.

what i want to know is why is it so hard to come up with a dumb action movie plot. you have your hero. you have your bad guy. you contrive some reason for one to fight the other. and that's about it. and yet, not one of these movies managed to achieve this simple formula. i dream better plots in my sleep.