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Let's face it .... Summer Movie Season 2005 lacks something.
The obvious answer would be a big blockbuster starring 'Wonder Boy' Tobey Maguire,
but the truth of the matter is . . Hollywood is out of ideas.
This past weekend, the *big* movies that opened were :
The Fantastic Four
Dark Water.

And what could these two completely different movies have in common ?
Well, besides being quite awful, both were NOT original stories.

Dark Water is based upon the Japanese film Honogurai mizu no soko kara (UK title Dark Water). Dark Water is also based upon the novel by Kôji Suzuki, who wrote the all-too-familar novel-turned-horror-turned-remake The Ring (Ringu). Both films have annoyingly similar attributes/plot lines/scary children, but Dark Water is less a horror film, and more a psychological drama, which the trailers/tv spots would definitely not want you to believe.
Despite having great actors and a striking, murky, damp atmosphere, Dark Water drowns in the PG-13 conventions which Hollywood as succumb itself to.
The movie wants you to think that something profound will be revealed at the ending,
but it's all too reminiscent of The Ring .. makes me wonder why there's rumors going around that Director Walter Salles didn't approve the final cut of the movie.

Directed by Tim (this-movie-has-no) Story, The Fantastic Four is anything but fantastic.
The entire plot of this comic book movie might be as simplistic and idiotic as possible.
Doctor Victor Von Doom takes the four into space. Something bad happens.
They're all experiencing different affects. Oh, and Von Doom wants to rule the world, for some reason.
Plus, the special effects are laughable, to accompany the total lack of action and 'awesomeness'.
Don't even get me started on the presence of Kerry Washington (a GREAT ACTRESS), who has been reduced to playing 'the blind woman'.
Combining not-so-big (or even credible) 'actors' together for TF4 wasn't a good idea -
Jessica Alba might as well have been invisible, as her Sue Storm pouts her way through the film, as her brother Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) uses his powers for getting chicks. Ioan Gruffud's Reed Richards doesn't know whether he should be chill with the super 'Stretch' powers or be his normal nerdy self (Gruffud's acting would be more suitable in something in the vein of Hulk - he's really out of place).
How unfortunate is it also that the one actor left in the four - Michael Chiklis - has literally been reduced to a big hunk of moody rock. You might as well have made it CGI and had him do a voice over.

Besides every major character making a complete idiot out of themselves, the only slight redeeming quality of the film is Julian McMahon's Doom being convincing enough with his hammed up evil scientist. He definitely has to be evil - he put these four dodo birds in Space.
Let's call it Diet Spider-Man - All the elements of a comic book movie, without the stuff that makes it sweet.

Maybe this friday 7/15 will hold a new, fresh, and less familiar weekend.
But that's unlikely, since Tim Burton's re-imagination/adaptation/un-remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens wide,
but the other release is the adult comedy The Wedding Crashers, a seemingly original movie, which only *mildly* reminds me of Old School, which I sort of enjoyed. .
hmm .. maybe that's what they're trying to do.

At least with Hollywood this summer, we all know what happens in the ending,
and sometimes that can be a welcome security blanket.

Myself, I like going into a theater and not knowing the characters, the plot, the conventions -
don't we all love a little mystery ?