Again with the flicks...

The Sting won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1973. (I think I might've taken American Graffiti over it, but I don't know two of the other nominees, so I guess this one wasn't a bad pick.) In checking out IMDB, I saw this user comment about the film: "A Lightweight, Clever Throwback to the Big Cons of the 1930's", and that's a pretty good summary of the film.

The cast is excellent. Redford and Newman are, as always, likeable leads, and I'm guessing the combination of the two was pretty much box office gold in '73. The rest of the cast is composed of a bunch of that guys. They're the sorts of actors who have appeared in tons of movies you've seen, and you recognize them, but you can't remember their name - except for Ray Walston, who's great.

The plot is tight and has a nice twist that is only slightly obvious (but probably wasn't the first time I saw the movie - like twenty years ago), but it hasn't aged well. Now it looks like a nice older movie that had a bunch of likeable guys doing stuff that wasn't really all that bad - even though it was all illegal, of course.

It's fun for an anfternoon when there's nothing else happening, and it might grab you for a few minutes if you were flipping channels, but it's certainly no Road House.

I had heard some aweful things about Fantastic Four, but I was pleasently surprised that it wasn't all that bad.

Sure, it's not a spectacular film, but it's a decent adaptation of the comics. It does the required duty of setting up all the characters, telling their origins, giving us enough of a backstory to know why they all ended up together, and we get a bad guy for them to fight while the players come together as a team. It's pretty standard fare for just about any team-up movie of the past fifty years (not just comic book ones).

Four fifths of the main cast is nicely chosen with Reed doing the reasonably dorky and oblivious routine pretty well, some guy doing a good Johnny Storm hot head, and that guy who dated Alyssa Milano on Charmed doing a decent interpretation of Dr. Doom. Sure, he wasn't the nutty Latvarian, but the character worked decently well - a bit more along the lines of the Ultimate Doom, really.

Jessica Alba didn't work for me as Sue Storm, being way too pushy a character for the historical Sue. I guess she might've been going more for the Ultimate version of the character, too, but it didn't work for me.

That was balanced by Michael Chiklis who did a great job as the tortured and reluctant hero Ben Grimm. He really carries the film and gives the viewers an entry into the world of the FF. He's the emotional center of the group - as he is in the comics - and really does a great job.

The fight scenes are decently done as are the special effects.

It's a decent first film - not great, admittedly, but survivable. Maybe I had my expectations lowered enough that the film shone in comparision, but I enjoyed the flick.

In terms of comic book films, it's certainly above The Hulk and Daredevil and Electra - which I just saw tonight. Review will follow...