Fantastic Farce...

There's a moment near the end of Fantastic Four when Victor Von Doom says, "This should be fun." And it should be.

But, boy...is it NOT.

It's beyond me what the plot of Fantastic Four is other than scientists get powers and then use them, begrudgingly, for good. There's no real story. The special effects, especially Mr. Fantastic's stretching power, are cheap and amateurish. Arguably the only one that works is the Human Torch. The whole movie is cheap looking, in fact, although some of the sets are nice. (Von Doom's office is filled with giant V's all over the place...but, really shouldn't it be VD because it's...oh. Nevermind.)

And the casting doesn't help. Jessica Alba is hot, but that's about it. Ioan Gruffudd is ineffectual, Julian MacMahon is hammy, Chris Evans is obnoxious and Michael Chiklis is, well...effective, but I still can't decide whether it would have been better to CGI the Thing or leave him as a very obvious actor in make-up. However, I still kept waiting for Chiklis to do Curly from the 3 Stooges.

The movie just starts, with no real idea given of who these people are, what their relationship to each other is and why they're together. Through dialogue you learn that Richards and Von Doom went to school together (check), Johnny and Sue Storm are brother and sister (check-check) and Sue and Reed used to have a relationship (check-check-check). But unlike the comics, Sue works for Von Doom, and she and Reed...oh, why should I bother? It's so UNLIKE the comics in that respect that it's annoying.

One aspect of the early comics that they kept was the bickering between the Thing and Torch. And here it's annoying, too. Back in he 60s, heroes didn't bicker and fight. They were noble and above that kind of thing. The FF by Lee and Kirby set that notion on its ear, and it was fresh and different. Here...not so much.

There's little showcase given to each of the 4's powers, either, other than the Human Torch. It's as if The Incredibles sapped the filmmakers of any creativity when it came to Reed Richards' stretching abilities. Doom becomes just another villain with a mask (a mask given to him for "humanitarian efforts" by the people of Latveria---WTF?), and MacMahon could have literally phoned in his voice-over (although Doom does wear a spiffy sweater under his cape...hmmm, wonder if it's a sweater VEST), since the mask covers his entire face and doesn't move when he talks. And nothing takes the threat out of a super-viillain whose name is DOOM faster than the writers calling him "Vic."

Vic. Vic the super villain. Vic the maniacal despot. More like Vic the produce manager.

Fantastic Four isn't fantastic. It's not even remotely fun. And that's very, very sad. The Fantastic Four was the flagship title of Marvel Comics for many years in the 60s, literally "the world's greatest comics magazine." It was the opening gunshot in the Marvel Age of Comics, the reason they called themselves "The House of Ideas," in a time when that phrase REALLY meant something. I don't think there will be a Fantastic Four 2. And that's a shame, because they've taken the most imaginative of comic books and made it into an incredibly unimaginative movie.

Comments

[Gary]

Well, it made 54-freekin' million dollars! So I'm guessing I'm dead wrong about there NOT being a FF2!

[JohnH985]

I agree with you. It was a huge disappointment. I kind of liked the bickering between Thing and Torch, I thought at least it reminded me of the comics. I like the Thing's suit. But Doom was terrible. I wanted to like this movies so much, it was the movie I was waiting for this summer. And it was such a let down.